Break the ropes
A question quoted in Mary Oliver’s Blue Horses hits Tina Porter between the eyes: “If you don’t break the ropes while you’re alive, do you think ghosts will do it after?”
What are your visions and what are the ropes that need to be cut? What are the days ahead of you full of and what can they be full of? . . . [If] your soul is straining at invisible ropes, perhaps it is time to follow the line of the rope back and see what is holding you, because maybe you are a visionary, but you’ve never been given permission to be so—by yourself or anyone else. (Ugly Pies, March 12)
Claire Curole wrestles with hard questions about identity and vocation.
Who am I? Whose am I? From what source and by what means and to what end? Sometimes we get clear answers. More often, we don’t, and like a dolphin or a bat navigating by echolocation, we fling questions out into the Mystery and get, from time to time, a ping in response. . . .
I hope, in my bones, that there is a place in this world where I am the missing piece that completes the jigsaw picture—just as I am, where my bumps and angles fit exactly as I am. (Sand Hill Diary, March 12)
Karen Johnston writes a prayer “for someone in deep pain who does not yet pray.”
Let me begin by setting aside my skepticism,
my sarcasm, my doubt, my intellectualized judgment,
my clever snarky attitude that wants to
shut me up and keeps me shut down.I do not release it completely,
for it serves me well in other circumstances,
but I let go my tight grasp,
leaving room for something more.Let me say these words:
dear god,
and not choke, not giggle,
nor fill with fear. (Irrevspeckay, March 10)
Selma is now
Leslie Mills shares one of the key questions of the UU Selma experience this past week: “Do you love?”
It’s not enough to reason your way to action, or to argue your way, and you can’t even believe your way to action. You can only act for justice from a place of love. And your actions will have more power if you are able to articulate that, because it connects your humanity to that of the people with whom you are striving for justice. (Leaping Loon, March 7)
The Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern asks, “For what would I risk everything?”
Mostly I would like to give my life by living and working for a cause, not by dying for it. When I think of what I would risk dying for, I think of freedom and fairness, of the earth, but mostly of people: people I know. It’s a principle of community organizing and congregational leadership that what people give to, sacrifice for, go to the wall for, is their connection with other people. When we know someone who is suffering under oppression, abstractions such as freedom and justice take on flesh. They acquire a face, and the face silently asks us to act. Their fight becomes our fight. (Sermons in Stones, March 9)
Doug Muder helps us sort through the mixed news of the Justice Department’s Ferguson report.
In the end, although the Justice Department hasn’t given the black citizens of Ferguson Darren Wilson’s scalp, it has given them what they really need: Exposure of the corrupt and predatory system they live under, and some hope of relief. (The Weekly Sift, March 9)
The Rev. Tom Schade makes a case for reparations for the people of Ferguson.
The people from whom those dollars were taken are owed them. All of the dubious charges, all of the fines, all of the fines levied because the original fines were not paid on time, all the penalties and interest and court fees need to be returned. Not as a matter of “development funds” or “community investment” or “public policy”, but simply because stolen money must be returned from the criminal to the victim, to be used by victims for whatever purpose they choose. It’s their money, end of story. (The Lively Tradition, March 10)
Contrary voices
Kim Hampton is skeptical about UU promises.
So when Peter Morales stands in Brown Chapel last Saturday and says, “We are your partners forever,” is that really true? Our history shows that our partnerships, when it comes to race, are infrequent and easily dropped. But what might be even more telling, our memory is selective; we remember Selma (oh how we remember Selma), but we all but ignore the tumultuous relationship between the AUA and Ethelred Brown. We remember Selma, but skip over the fact that for an organization headquartered in Boston there was almost universal UU silence during the Boston busing riots of the 1970s.
If we are going to be partners, what’s the plan? Talk is cheap and easy; just saying we’re partners doesn’t mean that we are. (East of Midnight, March 11)
The Rev. Scott Wells has mixed feelings about UU participation in the fiftieth anniversary observances in Selma—and a bit of advice.
[To] escape the peril of exoticism, live where you work and work where you live. Be not tourists, but companions. Be present in the place. Show up daily, not every fifty years. (Boy in the Bands, March 9)
What is church?
Leslie Mills meets a woman in Selma who says of Unitarian Universalists, “I think I’ve found my people at last!”
When this woman walks through the doors of her local UU congregation, brimming with this fierce hope that, after years of believing she was alone, she’s finally—finally—found her true home, a faith where the flame of justice burns brightly, how will her fierceness be received?
Will you try to tame her? Will you ask her to conform to your way of doing things? . . . You see, I don’t want us to disappoint her, and I don’t want us to use her up. (Leaping Loon, March 7)
The Rev. Andrew Millard is grateful for a recent workshop that restored his faith in church.
I have been disheartened by the apparently exclusive emphasis on other forms of religious group-making, including the earnest promotion of ministry as a vocation that in the future will require either independent wealth or a submission to poverty. . . . The fact is that it takes hard work for people to actually be in community, particularly religious community. (Life’s Too Short to Sing the Melody, March 6)
Thomas Earthman wishes we would stop thinking of UUism as a halfway house.
Unitarian Universalism has a reputation of being the rehabilitation clinic for people who are leaving religion. That is a sad statement on how we view faith. People don’t come to us because they want to leave religion; they come because they want a religion that speaks to a broader world view and inclusion. . . .
What many are looking for is community, encouragement, hope, and mental or ethical stimulation, and maybe some music or ritual. They are looking for religion when they show up, just one that is liberal and offers them a chance to explore theology, philosophy, and morality safely and as part of a community. (I Am UU, March 6)