Holy ordinary
For the Rev. Elizabeth Curtiss and her wife, living with a progressive illness is like living in the shadow of a volcano.
When I wrote fondly last week about my joy at playing house, did I mention that it sits on a volcano? Like all volcanoes, this one troubles and frightens in various ways, but not all the time, and not in any pattern. Maybe it’s more like living near several volcanoes, each with its own separate pattern. You might have seen one of those documentaries about the various Iceland volcanoes. One blows straight up in the air, one kind of seeps, another threatens to spew forth enough heat to bury the nearby towns and farms with mud from rapid melting of its usually beautiful glacier. . . .
The name of our volcano is Huntington’s Disease. It lives in my wife like a parasite, often resting, but always on the lookout for some way to kidnap her body and turn it against us. (Politywonk, September 20)
The Rev. Robin Tanner and her partner have a covenant that has helped them through the first stages of new parenthood.
If things got tough . . . and one of us was short-tempered with the other one, or said something unkind, then we would apologize, forgive and MOVE ON. . . .
In that first 48 hours home when the twins cried again within 30 minutes of their last feeding and my beloved slept peacefully through it, I said something best not put into print. The next morning as we huddled over our coffee I looked up and said, “I am sorry for what I said.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she responded. (Piedmont Preacher, September 22)
All in this together
Claire Curole reports from the People’s Climate March in New York City, where she was unable to join the main group of UUs due to a traffic jam.
I would have liked to be part of the interfaith block, gathered with the other UU’s. I know that some folks from our bus did get there – I saw the pictures later. But what did happen was also delightful and very appropriate – we are everywhere, threading our way through all kinds of things, making connections in unexpected places to work for the greater common good.
Which was, after all, the core message of the Climate March.
We are indeed all in this together. (The Sandhill Diary, September 23)
Hindu UU Ricky Cintron struggles with the Hindu community’s reaction to violent hate crimes.
I do not want your apathetic philosophical diatribes about how I don’t need to march in a pride parade. I do not want your lectures with quotes from scriptures and purports about how sex and gender are material characteristics. . . . What I want, what I need, what my community needs is your compassion and your commitment. What we want to hear is, “I’m sorry this is happening to you and I will do whatever I can to support you, because we are all equal in God’s eyes.” (Jñana-Dipena, September 25)
The Rev. Susan Maginn wonders about what to do with privilege after Ferguson.
It seems a disturbing truth that caring people of privilege like to save non-privileged people. We like the feeling of doing good in the world. We like to be the hero. There could be worse flaws. But here’s what we need to learn: when we put on our shiny superhero costume, we can do real harm. We can disempower people and do so sadly in the name of empowerment. . . .
We need to humbly stay on the sidelines this time, but that does not mean that we need to be ashamed of our privilege and our ignorance and disappear. There is a role for those of us who are privileged, but it is not a starring role. We work hard behind the scenes, not on the stage. We remain in the wings so that those voices with far more wisdom and far less power can be heard loud and clear. (Quest for Meaning, September 23)
Margaret Sequeira grew up in a family that disparaged “welfare queens;” now that she’s known her share of financial stress, she encourages us to ban the word “lazy.”
We must stop judging people by the size of their bank accounts, or lack thereof. We must stop assuming that if you are struggling financially you are more likely to commit crime or try to rip someone off. Shaming people never gets them motivated to do better. Shaming people makes sure they hide even deeper in their shell, keeping their head down and just doing their very best to get through from day to day. Shame strips hope, strips dream, strips motivation. All our punishing of the poor only drives people deeper into despair, deeper into hopelessness and deeper into poverty. (Scattered Revelations, September 23)
The Rev. Tom Schade passes along Tom Hayden’s thoughts on why social movements seem ineffective. (The Lively Tradition, September 21)
A side of racism
When her family is treated differently by a restaurant hostess than the African-American man in line behind her, the Rev. Megan Lloyd Joyner wonders how to respond.
We debated leaving. We debated saying something. But I didn’t know what to say, and I am not sure yet what I would have or should have said. I regret, though, not saying something.
I wonder how many people have received a similar unwelcoming “welcome” on a Sunday morning at church. No matter how hospitable we may want to be, it is quite possible that we may greet visitors and long-time members alike with unintentional micro-aggressions. (Quest for Meaning, September 22)
The Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern misreads a bumper sticker—”IMAM AZIZ MUHAMMAD HIGH SCHOOL. Home of the Jihadis.” Click here to find out what it really said! (Sermons in Stones, September 22)
Uses of power
The Rev. Meg Riley finds her thoughts focused on “the use of power by authority figures, and how that leads to trust or to brokenness.”
Authority figures have a choice—trust people and set reasonable limits to make the world work for everyone, or create a world of fear and rules and punishment. A TSA world. A world where everyone, known or unknown, is not to be trusted and every student is secretly wanting to wield a weapon. (HuffPo Religion, September 23)
The Rev. Dan Harper revisits “the mess at Starr King,” specifically looking at the ethics of securing electronic communications, the training of new ministers, and the future of Starr King.
[F]rom an ethical standpoint, the SKSM leadership should accept blame for the release of sensitive information, and they should publicly apologize to all three candidates for the SKSM presidency, staff, students, and anyone else affected by the poor security protocols.
. . . . If SKSM leadership works hard at it, my guess is that this mess will take two to five years to clean up—if it is addressed openly and non-defensively, and right now there’s not much evidence of openness or non-defensiveness at SKSM. (Yet Another Unitarian Universalist, September 25)