Celebrate!
Somehow the fall seems like a big time of year for holidays and celebrations. This month we have everything from the Jewish Day of Atonement to a Hindu celebration of good triumphing over evil in the form of a god defeating a demon. But for many of us (candy lovers in particular) the big event is Halloween, which provides us with kind of a theme this month. Kind of. In a backwards kind of way.
Click on any of the links below to find out more about the holiday and how you might celebrate it.
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We Honor… |
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| Halloween, which sort of leads naturally to the topic of Dracula. Dracula was the creation of the novelist Bram Stoker. However, people think that Stoker got his idea for the caped creature of the night from Transylvania who sucks blood, from a real Prince Vlad, known as Vlad the Impaler, or Dracula – "Son of the Dragon." He was, by all accounts, a terrifying ruler who had hundreds of people impaled on spikes because he thought they might be traitors—or just because he wanted to show people what might happen if they even thought about turning against him.
So what does all this have to do with Unitarian Universalists? Well, nothing really, except that Transylvania, which used to be a part of Hungary, and is now part of the country of Romania, is a place where there have been Unitarians for hundreds of years—far longer than in the U.S. or England. And there are still Unitarian churches active there today. Transylvanian Unitarians have had a very hard time of it. They are people who are ethnically Hungarian (speaking the Hungarian language and following Hungarian culture) in a country where the majority of people are Romanian (with a totally different language and their own culture). From 1965-1989, Romania was under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaucescu, who might not have been quite like Vlad the Impaler, but wasn't so far off. As a religious and ethnic minority, the Transylvanian Unitarians were treated especially badly. Now, with a better government in place, Unitarians in Transylvania are gradually recovering land and buildings that were taken from them, but life in these villages can still be a real struggle.
Services in a Transylvanian Unitarian church might look and sound very different from what you are used to. Imagine having your worship service in a building hundreds of years old, with the readings taken almost entirely from the Bible, and with the hymns all in a sad-sounding minor key. But Unitarians in Transylvania share the heart of their faith with Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists around the world—an openness to differing beliefs, an understanding that Jesus was a great teacher but not God, and an understanding that the important part of religion is how we live it in everyday life.
Many Unitarian churches in Transylvania are now partnered with UU churches in (mostly) the US. They exchange letters and sometimes visits, and UU churches raise money to help support the struggling Transylvanian churches. I think most people who have experienced this partnership with a Transylvanian church would say that they get back things money can't buy—a sense of history; the chance to get to know warm, wonderful people far away; and a deeper understanding of who we are as Unitarians. You can find out more about the Partner Church Council, which matches up partner churches. Click on the "Religious Education" menu to see lessons and games about partner churches and Transylvanian Unitarians. |
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Act!
You don't have to be a member of a partner church to help support the Unitarian churches in Transylvania. One of the biggest issues for these churches is that so many young people are moving away from the villages where the churches are located, because there are no jobs for them. If people have to leave the villages, they have to leave the churches…and then the villages and churches just fade away. But if people are able to support themselves in the villages, then the young people don't all have to move to the cities when they get old enough to look for work. And then the villages and the churches thrive.
Project Harvest Hope is an organization that is helping those village churches find ways for people to have jobs without moving away. Projects include a dairy farm and a bakery. Maybe you could contribute money earned from your own work doing chores to support these and other Transylvanian projects. Or have a fundraiser, such as inviting people to pay money to come to a Hungarian dinner at your house. Find some Hungarian recipes. Or if you belong to a local church, everyone can get in on the fundraising act. There's even a curriculum with stories and songs and everything on the Project Harvest Hope website, not to mention pictures of Transylvania and their projects—and a way to donate online. |
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Nurturing Your Spirit
We tend to think of masks as a fun or spooky way to dress up on Halloween. But making and wearing masks is an ancient religious practice around the world. For instance, the Kwakiutl people, native to the Northwest coast of North America, used masks as an important part of their religious ceremonies. According to Kwakiutl creation stories, there was once a time when birds, fish, animals and humans differed only in skin covering and had the ability to transform themselves at will. All living beings were part of one greater whole and animals could take on human form, just as humans could become animals, birds, fish, and mythical creatures. According to Kwakiutl belief, when dancers are wearing these masks, they are transformed into the spirits represented on the mask.
If you'd like to see pictures of masks from all over the world, take a look here. But you can make your own ceremonial mask without doing anything as complicated as these beautiful examples. First, think about what animal you identify with. Consider the qualities that you associate with different animals (like bravery for a lion, or kindness for a dog) and what animal seems to best represent how you see yourself inside. If you could transform into the spirit of an animal, what would you transform into? Have a look here for some suggestions on how to make masks. Or go simpler, and use a paper plate or aluminum foil as the base for your mask. |
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Practicing the Principles
Since we've been on the subject of Unitarian churches in Transylvania, now might be a good time to remember our sixth UU principle: the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all. Sometimes it can seem like it's hard to manage peace, liberty and justice even within your own family or within your own school. Having a community of the entire world without war and where everyone is treated fairly and is free to speak their truth and follow their dreams can seem like an impossible goal. But organizations like our Partner Church Council and Project Harvest Hope are just a couple of the UU organizations that are trying to make this dream a reality. Sometimes you have to start with a dream and move forward from there. Here's a song to sing to remind us all to keep dreaming that dream: "Everyone ‘neath a vine and fig tree shall live in peace and unafraid, and into plowshares beat their swords; nations shall learn war no more." |
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Ask CLiF
Ask CLiF any questions you have about religion or living
a good life.
Dear CLiF,
Why do Christians worship? Why do Muslims worship? Why do Hindus worship? Why do Jews worship?
—Sheryl
Dear Emma,
I think maybe you're asking why people of different religions and around the world all have ways of worshiping. (If you need to know all about the different ways that different religions worship it's going to take a lot more time and space than we have here.) I suppose no one really knows for sure why people from such different cultures seem to have this desire to connect to something larger than themselves, to honor that Big Thing, whether it's called God or Allah or Brahman or any of the other thousands of names that human beings have for the divine. Scientists have found that we actually have a part of our brain that is active in "spiritual" experiences, so maybe we're just built that way. Or maybe, questioning beings that we humans are, we need to figure out ways of addressing big mysteries like why we are here and what happens when we die. Or maybe we share this deep internal understanding that all living beings are connected in some deep way that we can't quite describe, and we need to find ways to experience that deep sense of connection. What do you think?
—CLiF
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