December 2001
Look now; for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing:
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!
Merry Christmas, Zipper and Doodah
by Marjorie Rebmann, minister
Unitarian Church of Montpelier, Vermont
When someone asked how I strengthened my own sense of spirituality,
I used to say, "I visit the llamas." It impressed people to
think that I sat at the feet of Tibetan Buddhists, listening to their
chants and absorbing their wisdom. What I really meant, of course, was
that I go to as many llama farms and conventions as I can find.
But now I own Zipper and Doodah; two very large, nut-brown, well-behaved,
Oberhasli Swiss goats. And I believe my ship has come in. They have taught
me many lessons of love and changed me-especially and profoundly, with
regard to the old, old story of Christmas. I have found new lights in
a tale that had shriveled with my new ways of thinking as an adult and
as a Unitarian Universalist.
The story of Christmas always made me nervous, it being all tinsel and
stereotype, set to music and sold to shops. I didn't like it. It never
made any rational sense to me. But Zipper and Doodah, with their affectionate
personalities and the light in their strange brown eyes, gave Christmas
back to me.
I have to say that there are probably not many women in the world who
received an eight-quart, reinforced, heated water bucket from their husband
for Christmas. But I did. And there are not many women this season who
wanted to find a new pair of hoof shears in their stocking. But there
are probably plenty of women who put on warm, outrageously mismatched
clothing, who feel more comfortable in them than in anything else, and
who talk to their goats: "I'm closing the barn doors because of the
coyotes; they will be hungry tonight," I'd say, on a freezing winter
night, and they would look at me with soft, unearthly eyes and respond
with a low, understanding "lahahahahl."
The fact is that being with my goats is a meditation, or has the same
affect on my mind and spirit as meditation. I keep a chair in their pen
even in the snow, and in the summertime there are three chairs in the
goat yard, as Henry David Thoreau said; "Three chairs: one for solitude,
two for friendship, and three for society."
Each morning, as I open the stable doors and step onto its wooden floor,
I feel a holy presence. And this is how I've tried to explain that to
myself.
For one thing, the animals in my barn are meek and mild, just like the
ones in the Christmas song, with an affectionate intelligence that is
too-rarely recognized in this world. They always welcome human company.
Oberhasli goats are large and beautifully marked with a black, zipper-like
stripe down their backs and four black stockings. They are playfully dignified.
As Walt Whitman said of animals, "They bring me tokens of myself."
For another thing, the temperature of their small stable is always warmer
than the outside. It is a true sanctuary from the wind and rain and snow
and cold after the short, icy walk from our house to the barn. Such a
stable wouldn't be a bad place to be born. There is a welcoming, nurturing
warmth that embraces you as you enter into the light made dim by piles
of hay stacked near the window. The dairy farmer where I get my hay says
that animal temperatures run warmer than human temperatures, and that
his cows literally heat their barn with their steamy breath. Farmers usually
worry, he says, that their animals heat up their barns too much. It's
actually better for barns to be cold and well-ventilated in winter; but
they warm up with life. Goats, too, with their straw breath, warm their
barn some-at least a few degrees.
And the sweet smell of grasses fills the little stable as you enter. First
cuttings mixed with second cuttings, the finer hay and the coarser hay.
When I worked in First Parish, Wayland, Massachusetts, I discovered, as
I sorted out the church archives, that the Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears
(who actually wrote the Christmas song, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear),
had a salary that was paid with ministerial grasses. Ministerial grasses.
This was hay grown for the purpose of barter for ministerial services.
I think of him whenever I load my Jeep with fragrant grasses and head
home on the dirt roads of East Montpelier.
I can fit seven bales into my Jeep.
I am a rich woman.
The manger of my barn is a simple piece of metalwork hung from a wooden
railing; a deep triangle filled with hay. It smells like the sweet promise
of an autumn day. You could lay a baby on it and the baby would sleep
in comfort and peace.
There is a palpable dignity in a humble barn. There is complete innocence
and a total lack of self-consciousness and a desire only for life. There
is no forethought and no afterthought, only the present moment for goats
and the community of a stable. There is a holy presence there, as indescribable
as only a holy presence must remain. But it's there in the redolent breathing
in and out.
It is now perfectly logical to me that the Christmas story takes place
in a stable, with a babe lying in a manger. Only Matthew and Luke record
this unlikely story. The other two gospel writers don't mention it. But
Matthew and Luke tell the old tale, and Luke is a better writer by far:
"'. . . and this will be a sign for you,' said the angel to the shepherds,
'you will find a babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.'"
Whether this story was a literary construction or whether it evolved out
of a constantly revised oral tradition with a germ of truth or whether
it really happened that the bumbling Joseph forgot to make reservations,
we'll never know. But it's no surprise to me now that a lot of people
regard as a savior a baby, born in a stable, and laid in a
manger.
The inside of an ancient barn in Bethlehem would have looked much like
the inside of my barn; simple, practical. But it would most likely have
been a three-sided barn since there were no blowing snowstorms in Israel.
It would have had a manger like a small box full of soft, strong, fragrant
grasses. It would have been lit by starlight, much like my barn; it would
have been a holy place even before a young mother in labor and her frightened
husband arrived.
It would have been a holy place because it witnessed to the fact that
both humankind and animals alike, interdependent as they are, are also
completely dependent on something far beyond their understanding and explaining.
After all our reading and seeking, the truth we share is that both animals
and humans are inspirited, and therefore animated by something neither
comprehends; the mystery, the tremendous mystery. Sometime each night,
between twelve and two, my eyes open wide at the sound of the coyotes'
howl: yip, yip. And I know that I am safe. My family is safe. And my goats
are safe. And there is something beyond any of us that keeps us, thus
far, safe.
This is what the location of a stable for the Christ child to make his
entry into the world says to me now.
If we live in the understanding that we are dependent for life on something
beside and beyond ourselves; if we breath in and out with this knowledge,
accept it and raise praises for it, if we live in accordance with it,
honoring the wonder and mystery of it, then we have prepared ourselves
for the path of the deeper life. And this was true for then, when a babe
was laid in a holy manger, and for now as we retell the old story and
celebrate, and this will be true forever.
Oh, and my goats have helped me to suddenly understand why it's said that
the animals knelt to see the babe. It's true. There are mornings when
I have to get to the stable earlier than usual. My boots crunch over the
ice and snow. When I open the wooden door, my goats are actually kneeling
then. Goats, like cows and horses, rise on their hind legs first while
their forelegs are still delicately folded beneath them as they were in
sleep.
Should any of us go to the barn at 12 o'clock midnight on Christmas Eve,
I can assure you that, having heard us approach, the animals, in the fragrance
of sweet grasses, in the holy presence of life, will be kneeling.
Quest December 2001 Contents
T'was in the Moon of Wintertime
by the Reverend Barbara A. Earl, retired minister now
living in Mississauga, Ontario
Shortly after we arrived in Canada in 1958, my husband and I moved from
our two rooms in a downtown Toronto attic into a farmhouse way out in
the country in the middle of wide open fields. Coming from city life
in England, I could hardly believe the expanse of emptiness that surrounded
us. We moved in in February and it was our first real experience of
snow and a North American winter. It happened to be a very hard winter-lots
of snow and bone-chilling cold.
One Saturday morning when my sister, her husband, and new baby were
staying for the weekend, we woke up to an absolutely fabulous sight
that I can still see. There had been an ice storm in the night and everything
was coated with an inch-thick layer of clear ice. The storm had passed
on, leaving us with no electricity, and the sun shone from a clear,
rich, blue sky. The old orchard behind the farmhouse had been transformed
into a fairyland. Every bare branch, every husk of weed that peeked
above the snow sparkled as the brightness of the sun turned each fragment
of ice into a prism. The snow itself was crusted with a clear layer
of ice and it, too, sparkled. For the first time, I could see what effect
the makers of Christmas tree lights were trying to achieve. But the
most lavishly decorated tree could not compare with the old, uncared-for
apple trees behind the house.
We spent the whole day outside in this magical place. Being fresh off
the boat, we did not possess a toboggan, so we used cardboard boxes
to sit on and slide over the top of the ice crust on the few gentle
hills around the house. It was a day to remember, but that night brought
a bonus. As I looked out the window I experienced the moon of wintertime.
The ice still sparkled but not with the reds and blues and greens we
had seen in the sun's reflection. It was all silver-just pure crystal
light. There was a calm, a hush, an air of sacred stillness in the scene.
The moon of wintertime when all the world was still.
The Huron carol speaks of that moon in wintertime. It was written by
Jean de Brébeuf, a missionary to the Huron tribe in the Eastern
woodlands of Canada in the early 17th century. Coming from France, he,
too, must have been struck by the beauty and expanse of the North American
winter landscape and the same moon that thrilled me centuries later.
As he tried to translate the Christian Christmas story into images that
would speak to those he was attempting to convert, he made note of the
area's natural beauty. De Brébeuf lived with the Hurons for 24
years before he was caught up in the warfare that erupted when the Iroquois
attacked. Captured by the Iroquois, he was "baptized" by being
immersed in boiling water and tortured until he died. He was canonized
in 1933, and with 25 others, has his feast day each year on September
26th.
Some missionaries were sensitive to the existing native beliefs and
showed respect for the people they were trying to "save."
Such a one, I choose to believe, was Jean de Brébeuf. I choose
to believe this because I think the words of his carol, which he struggled
to write in the Huron language, indicate respect and sensitivity. His
goal was to present his adopted people with a clear picture of a fresh,
new, miraculous life-that of Jesus, emerging from the great spirit of
all.
Jean de Brébeuf attempted to translate the Native American understanding
of the divine into Christian terms. It is Gitchi Manitou who sends the
angel choirs in this carol. Gitchi Manitou variously translates as the
"Great Spirit," the "Master of Life," the "Great
Mystery of all Things," or as "Our Grandfather" the great
tortoise that carries the world on his back.
Gitchi Manitou is the power that energizes the universe. Native American
religious stories are filled with references to the manifestations of
Manitou, usually in the form of an animal-Coyote the trickster, for
example, or Thunderbird of the west coast. The meaning behind these
manifestations is an abstract concept of power. The similarities to
Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are obvious.
For Native Americans, Gitchi Manitou is the divine creator. He created
from a vision, and we can imagine him surveying his newly created world
and surmising that, "It was good," just as the divine creator
did in the western story of creation. The underlying force, the Gitchi
Manitou, was the Native American way of affirming the presence of a
mysterious, sacred source for all of life.
In the responsive reading, "An Eternal Verity," from Hymns
for the Celebration of Life, W. Waldemar Argow affirmed that "Older
than written language is spoken prayer, older than painting is the thought
of a nameless one. Religion is the first and last-the universal language
of the human heart."
I like this carol. I like the idea of Jean de Brébeuf, far from
home, living a Spartan life, learning to feel the power that connected
the society around him to its source. I think of him trying to share
the message of wonder and hope that he found in the story of Jesus by
using the language of that source. He sensed the magic of the moon in
the northern winter. He enlarged his vision as he tried to understand
the world of the other. The carol helps me look beyond the particularity
of the manger scene to the unseen power beyond the crèche.
In all cultures, the birth of a child deserves a celebration. Whether
our image is of a cradle in a stable or in a lodge of broken bark, may
we feel the power of the hope for new life, truth, and love that it
presents. We are all more alike than we sometimes wish to admit.
In Canada, the "Huron Carol," first written in the Huron
language by the Jesuit missionary Jean de Brébeuf around 1643,
is widely sung by First Nation Peoples and others. As one might expect,
several translations exist, including the version (#257) in our hymnbook,
Singing the Living Tradition. The words to the carol were translated
into simple French by a fellow missionary. The version in our hymnbook
is actually an interpretation of this rendering. With varying degrees
of success, each translation tries to honor the indigenous culture.
Iesus Ahattonnia
Ehstehn yayau deh tsaun we yisus ahattonnia
O na wateh wado:kwi nonnwa 'ndasqua entai
ehnau sherskwa trivota nonnwa 'ndi yaun rashata
Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia
Ayoki onki hm-ashe eran yayeh raunnaun
yauntaun kanntatya hm-deh 'ndyaun sehnsatoa ronnyaun
Waria hnawakweh tond Yosehf sataunn haronnyaun
Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia
Transliteration by John Steckley, Humber College, Toronto, Ontario
Jesus, He Is Born
Have courage, you who are human beings: Jesus, he is born
The okie spirit who enslaved us has fled
Don't listen to him for he corrupts the spirits of our thoughts
Jesus, he is born
The okie spirits who live in the sky are coming with a message
They're coming to say, "Rejoice!
Mary has given birth. Rejoice!"
Jesus, he is born
As they entered and saw Jesus they praised his name
They oiled his scalp many times, anointing his head
with the oil of the sunflower
Jesus, he is born
Translation by John Steckley, Humber College, Toronto, Ontario
The Huron Carol or, 'Twas in the Moon of Wintertime.
'Twas in the moon of wintertime when all the birds had fled,
That mighty Gitchi Manitou sent angel choirs instead;
Before their light the stars grew dim
And wond'ring hunters heard the hymn:
"Jesous Ahatonhia, Jesous
Ahatonhia!"
Within a lodge of broken bark the tender Babe was found.
A ragged robe of rabbit skin enwrapped His beauty 'round;
And as the hunter braves drew nigh
The angel song rang loud and high:
"Jesous Ahatonhia, Jesous
Ahatonhia!"
Jean de Brébeuf, ca. 1643;translation/interpretation
from the French by Jesse Edgar Middleton, 1926
Quest December 2001 Contents
 From
Your Minister
by Rev. Jane Ranney Rzepka, minister, CLF
For so the children come
And so they have been coming.
Always in the same way they come-
Born of the seed of man and woman.
No angels herald their beginnings.
No prophets predict their future courses.
No wise men see a star to show where to find the babe that
will save humankind.
Yet each night a child is born is a holy night.
Sophia Lyon Fahs
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Once upon a time-2,000 years ago- there was born a squirmy, reddish,
wrinkled babe, who probably did not sleep through the night, who no
doubt fussed for no reason at all, and who, one assumes, got hungry
at all kinds of inconvenient times. All these years later, we still
make quite a production of honoring Jesus' birth.
In fact, Unitarian Universalists go further. Not only do we celebrate
the birth of Jesus, we celebrate the potential of every baby that's
born to us. These tiny creatures are, as Shakespeare observed, "mewling
and puking." They can't utter a single sentence, distinguish a
loving mother from the family poodle, or recognize their fist as their
own even as it goes by in front of their faces, but we make a commotion
about them nonetheless. Unitarian Universalists are big on appreciating
all the miracles that surround us, and any baby's entrance into the
world is just such a miracle.
We are not alone in our urge to lift up the miracle of birth; in fact,
among the cultures of the world, we take the understated approach. According
to a sermon by Virginia Knowles, Krishna, of India, was thought to have
been born in 1200 before the common era of a virgin in a cave, and a
star announced his birth. The Persian Mithra was born on December 25th
in about 600 BCE., likewise of a virgin in a cave. Hinduism's Indra
was born in 725 BCE by descending from heaven, another child born to
a virgin. The birth of the Buddha in the fifth or sixth century BCE
took place in a park, they say, where angels held a net for his cradle
and sang in celebration as four kings joined them. And the up-coming
birth of Confucius, as another story goes, was announced to his mother
by a unicorn bearing a stone tablet, and when he was actually born,
two dragons and five immortals celebrated in the sky while heavenly
musicians sang.
I have done it myself-gone overboard about infants. I have all but worshipped
the babies brought forward for dedication ceremonies in church, and
I have never felt so awestruck as I was when holding my own babies for
the first time. But today, during the Christmas season, I'm going to
promote a little heresy. I'm going to put in a good word for adults,
for we too, are filled with promise.
I figure it this way. Jesus is honored as a wise teacher and religious
leader not because he was born, but because he grew up and changed the
world. The same goes for the Buddha and Confucius and any number of
religious figures. The same goes for any of us. Part of what we love
and celebrate in the babies in our lives is the promise they hold, the
hope of things to come, the contributions they could-who knows-make
to our society as they grow from babyhood into old age. Each one of
us is one of those promising babies, grown up. One-time holy babes,
now balding and spreading, now flossing and watching our weight, but
nonetheless divine.
It's true. We get so tied up with the little bundle of wonder in the
manger that we miss the more solidly established wonders around us,
just as close at hand: the parent who unfailingly tends a handicapped
child; the man who still loves sledding or makes animals out of long,
skinny balloons; the neighbor who always helps you clean your gutters;
or the person who organizes a shelter for battered women, or launches
an international campaign that solves an ecological problem; or the
people who have all they can do to get to work and back and get dinner
on the table and the kids to bed and yet, they do that day after day;
or the folks who do their best in spite of their loneliness, smiling
a good bit, and keeping on. That's holy, holy, stuff.
Each person reading this was born at a sacred time. And no matter what
the circumstances-whether we were greeted with joy or despair, whether
we were healthy or weak, whether we were easy babies or utterly exhausting,
we, too, were filled with promise. We who are once-newborn-now-grown
are filled with promise still. May every heart prepare it room.
Jane Rzepka
Minister
Quest December 2001 Contents
REsources for Living
by By Betsy Hill Williams, Director of Religious Education, CLF
On a visit to Star Island last summer, I heard from parents and religious
educators that families are looking for specific ideas for creating
family traditions and rituals. For many, the traditions they grew up
with no longer reflect their understanding of the universe; the symbols
and rituals have lost their meaning. And yet, the lure of ritual remains;
they recognize the power of direct experience to reach deeper levels
of understanding and connection and they want to make it a part of their
family life.
Tradition is family insurance against outside pressures that threaten
to overwhelm our days and weaken our ties to each other….With
the weight of permanence and the force of habit, tradition demands
our attention.
Susan Abel Lieberman,
in New Traditions
As I contemplated addressing this request, I felt a confession coming
on: I am not one of those parents. We haven't created structured rituals
for family milestones or seasonal events and I don't feel a void in
our family life because we lack them. How, I wondered, am I going to
write a genuine "how-to" manual for creating family ritual
if I don't even do it myself? Then, it occurred to me. My family life
is actually filled with ritual-it just isn't the kind that requires
a manual.
Here are a few of our family rituals. Every evening we hold hands around
the table and say a few words of thanks before we eat; when the kids
were younger, the dominant dinner conversation was a sharing of "good
thing, bad thing" for the day; for more than 10 years we spent
an hour every night reading aloud to one another. Perhaps our most unique
family ritual-and one that's been passed from generation to
generation-is the requirement to figure out the numerical value of the
candles on your birthday cake and how they add up to your age before
you can blow out the candles! These simple rituals and traditions have
bound my family together and deepened our connection and appreciation
of one another as ritual often does.
What is it that makes ritual powerful and memorable? . . . . What
is required is an intense focus that screens out all the distractions
of everyday life, and the evocation of an emotional or psychological
truth using symbols or actions that speak deeply to the people involved.
The rest is smoke and mirrors, sometimes literally.
Meg Cox,
in The Heart of a Family
In the foreword to Jump Up, a new book of celebrations around the world
by Luisah Teish, Angeles Arrien writes: "The word ritual, in fact,
derives from an Indo-European root meaning "to fit together."
It is related to such words as art, skill, order, weaving, and arithmetic,
all of which involve fitting things together to create order."
Ritual behavior softens the phases of life when we are reminded how
hard it is to be human. Ritual behavior enriches the phases of life
when we are reminded how fine it is to be human."
Robert Fulghum,
in From Beginning to End:The Rituals of Our Lives
I would submit (and here I would include myself) that today's families
are seeking activities "to fit together" not just for the
sake of order but also for strength and unity, for wholeness and deep
living. For some, the "order" imposed by structured rituals
is very important-perhaps providing the only respite from an otherwise
scattered and chaotic daily life. For those whose lives are already
too structured, adding a structured ritual might feel like just another
scheduled event. For them, family rituals will be simpler, more from
the heart and in the moment than pre-conceived and well-planned. Both
types of family rituals are valid, both meet the
same objectives: they help us to "fit together," in our family
and in the universe.
What's important is not the act so much as the intention: to develop
and maintain a habit of mindfulness, whether around everyday experiences
or special occasion.
Barbara Biziou,
in The Joy of Family Rituals
We have recently added three new books to the CLF library to help you
and your family define and create your own rituals. They are: New Traditions:
Redefining Celebrations for Today's Family, by Susan Abel Lieberman;
The Heart of a Family: Searching America for New Traditions That Fill
Us, by Meg Cox, and The Joy of Family Rituals: Recipes for Everyday
Living, by Barbara Biziou. Each book invites the reader to think anew
about family rituals and traditions, to see the everydayness of life
as opportunity to create ritual and traditions that bind you together.
Each author grounds her ideas and practical advice in the same underlying
philosophy: ritual is a natural, even inevitable, part of human social
life. We can and should harness its power.
What better time than December to rethink your family traditions? What
are your family rituals-small and large? What do you like about them?
What's missing? What are the emotional and psychological truths that
you want to be sure to share as a family? To understand how the power
of ritual works and to intentionally add it to your life is a
lasting gift to your whole family.
"The power of ritual to comfort and heal and teach is enormous,
and all parents have this power: they just need to know how it works."
Meg Cox,
in The Heart of a Family
Check out one of these books and you might find, as I did, that your
family life is richer in tradition and ritual than you thought! If not,
the hundreds of ideas-from common celebrations like birthdays and New
Year's Eve, to unique opportunities like car pools and graduations-will
surely help you make it so.
Ritual is routine with sprinkles and extra sauce.
Meg Cox,
in The Heart of a Family
Quest December 2001 Contents
More Than a Baby Jesus
by the Rev. Elizabeth Selle Jones, Richmond, CA
It starts early, too early,
With an innocent, colored light
Or jingling bell.
Almost unnoticed, certainly resisted, the momentum builds.
It oozes, multiplies, infiltrates
Permeates, engulfs, and overwhelms.
Now there is no corner, no page, no sound,
No thought, no mind, no heart
That is not pregnant with it.
Despite growing anxiety
Do not resist it.
Abandon cynicism.
Suspend suspicion.
Overindulge in friendship.
Give endlessly of compassion and justice.
Unwrap possibility and promise.
Let the Soul Season flood throughout.
Let holiness saturate,
Joy invigorate,
Hope purify.
Let love finally be born
Oh yes, let love be born.
Quest December 2001 Contents
Moments
by the Rev. Dr. Charles A. Gaines,
member, CLF Board of Trustees, and president, Turnabout Consultants
I have probably lived more than half the Christmases I shall ever see.
And I know now that I won't get everything I want. When I was a child,
it all seemed so easy. My affluent parents filled my stocking and gave
me whatever I asked. The loss of childhood came with the discovery that
the wrapped packages I tore into were distractions from what I really
wanted.
In youth I never asked for, but I expected, immortality. A dying mother
who told me, "If you ask for anything, make it good health,"
taught me something about that illusion.
I never asked to be God, either, but I expected to be able to control
life so I'd never be hurt or feel sad or afraid. Experience with living
has confirmed the fact that I can't make everything come out all right,
no matter how hard I try. So I'm learning to accept the darkness without
being so afraid that all the lights will go out.
And I never asked to be perfect, but I expected peace on earth and a
place where hunger, poverty, racism, and ignorance would be eradicated.
With half my Christmases over, I know now that it won't happen in my
lifetime. But I still dream, only with more patience.
What's left for Christmas? In spite of uncertainty, of my mortality,
my inability to have it all, and of living in an imperfect world, I
still have my moments: times of love from family and friends, times
of truth when it cuts a fine edge, times of hope when I believe, in
spite of it all. And these moments provide enough warmth to temper the
cold that would otherwise make me
callous, bitter, and resentful.
The moments bring Christmas cheer. For in them, I understand the darkness.
From them, I know that I can still start some small fire and see the
fires of others around me, so long as I breathe and believe in life.
Merry Christmas.
Quest December 2001 Contents
CLF Says Goodbye to Clifford
For more than 16 years, Donna Clifford has kept the books and paid
the bills for the Church of the Larger Fellowship. A dedicated UU, Donna
came to the Boston office from her home in Medford, Mass. once a week
to handle CLF's bookkeeping and to work with three different CLF ministers:
The Reverends Eugene Pickett, Scott Alexander, and Jane Rzepka. She
has been a loyal and committed member of the staff team during many
ups and downs over those years. Some CLF members may remember her friendly
presence at General Assembly over the years.
We will all miss Donna's calm manner and attention to detail, but we
are very happy for her because she leaves to spend more time at her
own company. We congratulate Donna because her investment and accounting
business, Rainbow Solutions, is finally demanding all her time
Quest December 2001 Contents
Mother's Day?
Already?
As you can imagine, we plan the contents of Quest way ahead.
So, we're thinking about Mother's Day.
How do you feel on Mother's Day? We are looking for pieces of 250 words
or so from, for example, those who were adopted, those who had the perfect
mom, those who have coped with a less-than-adequate mom, those who relinquished
babies, those who would have liked to have had children but didn't,
those who decided not to have children, those who adopted, those who
raised children and all the rest. If Unitarian Universalism has played
a part in your perspective, tell us about that, too.
Mail your thoughts to us at Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF), 25
Beacon St., Boston, MA 02108. FAX it to us at 617-523-4123, or, e-mail
it to jrzepka@uua.org. Though we won't be able to publish them all-we'll
certainly read what you send us. And we'll appreciate it
Quest December 2001 Contents
Kindling the Flame
by M. Maureen Killoran, minister, the Unitarian Universalist
Church of Asheville, North Carolina
It is December, and in the hills of Ireland, people will gather at
Newgrange this year as they have done for nearly 4,000 years; gather
to wait on the day of the Winter Solstice; to wait for the return of
the sun. Some have climbed an entry stone and entered deep into a passage
tomb so that over their heads there rests an assemblage of more than
250,000 pounds of unmortared stone. Trusting that the structure that
has held for millennia will not fail on this date, they gather in the
heart of the venerable tomb . . . the earth-womb where the ashes of
those the community held dear were brought at this time of festival
. . . that their spirits may be blessed and carried forth on the beam
of returning light.
Think of it . . . touch gently on the picture of Celtic people gathered
'round their fires throughout the night upon the solstice eve. Walk,
if you are willing, with the priests deep into the heart of the tomb.
. . the passage is narrow, but you can make it through . . . there is
no light. . . you wait in the darkness because to do otherwise would
be to abandon hope . . . you wait, and with the early rays of the dawn
it comes, the shafts of light penetrating deep . . . deep . . . casting
a ray of illumination into the very heart of the tomb . . . and who
knows what can happen if you are willing to let yourself believe . .
. it may be that the spirits of the ancients are blessed by the light
. . . it may be that the priests feel themselves renewed . . . it may
be that those gathered 'round the fire are able to re-commit themselves
to hope because the ancient ritual has been fulfilled once more.
Hanukkah
At Hanukkah, Jewish families kindle the flames on a Menorah . . . the
first, the server candle, giving light and power to the ritual that
is to come. The other candles are lit, one the first night and then
an additional candle each night, over the eight-day duration of the
festival . . .
The Hanukkah story tells how the Hebrew people won their freedom from
a brutal oppressor . . . and when they re-claimed their Temple at this
time when their spirits were at their lowest ebb . . . they found that
their captors had destroyed all but one small jar of sacred oil . .
. enough for only a single night of worship. Here you have a dilemma
. . . their religion called for them to kindle the flames and worship
for eight days and nights. . . and yet they had only this one, small
jar of sacred oil . . . they could have said . . . "Let's wait.
It's not a good time to celebrate now. There are problems to take care
of, and more oil must be found." They could have said, "We
can't possibly have our rituals until everything is ready." They
could have set things aside and said, "Hey, if everything isn't
perfect, then we're just not in the mood."
But this is what they did. They gathered in the temple, as their people
had done in the old days. And they lit that single jar of oil, and let
it burn . . . and it burned . . . and burned . . . and burned. That
one little jar gave light for eight days, and in the warmth of this
miracle, the people's hope was renewed and their joy was reborn.
Prayer for kindling the flame: Blessed be you, Spirit of Life,
who guides us to light candles at this festal time. Blessed be you,
Spirit of Healing, who works miracles of hope for our hearts to see.
Blessed be you, Spirit of Light, who sustains our life, lifts us up,
and brings us to this season of joy and love.
Quest December 2001
Contents
Adult Ed Class Starting-Sign Up!
Come join us for an online adult education class on the seven
UU principles. We'll explore the principles, what they mean, where they
come from, and why they are important to us as Unitarian Universalists.
The class will run eight weeks, starting the last week of January. It
is limited to 25-you may want to sign up early. If you'd like to participate,
please call Amber Beland, CLF ministerial intern at 617-948-6160 or
e-mail her at abeland@uua.org to
sign up for the class and more information.
Did You Know? There's a Welcoming Congregation Committee forming on
the e-mail list. For information, e-mail our Intern Minister, Amber
Beland, at abeland@uua.org.
Quest December 2001
Contents
On September 11
CLFers e-mailed 43 messages to each other on September 11
and wrote more through the night. Here are some excerpts.
from Finland: So sorry to hear about these senseless events. Our heartfelt
concern is with all of you in the States. from a college student in
Virginia: All I can think to do right now is e-mail you and say that
I care. I am thinking of the school teachers (three of you, especially)
who suddenly have had their lesson plans disrupted by the news, and
now are trying to explain the darkness of humanity to students. from
a member near Boston: Remember that it is much easier to commit a momentary
act of destruction, than it is to commit ongoing, long-term acts of
building. This is the reason terrorism is popular. This is what makes
peace so hard. from the college student again-an hour later: Just heard
my parents have been sent home from work, and all state offices are
closed. Many school systems, banks, gov't offices, and businesses .
. . have closed for the day. Roads are a mess. Bridges, tunnels, and
major north-south roads have been closed. My heart goes out to all of
you who are affected. from Western Nebraska: Another son-in-law driving
an eighteen-wheeler across Nevada, says fuel prices out there have just
increased 50 cents per gallon since the news break this morning. So,
we will hear of heroism and of the not-so-heroic on this sad day. from
St. Louis back to Boston: "This is what makes peace so hard."
We can do "hard." from near the headwaters of the Missouri
River: . . . make a public stand for compassion, peace, and diversity.
There will be an emotional backlash of anger, then suspicion and blame.
As we move through this, open hearts and calmer minds will be needed.
Blessed be dear friends. from Olympia, Washington: My heart is full
of sorrow that so many suffer. But I refuse to lose hope in the goodness
of life and people, for to do this would be to succumb to the terrorists'
desires. My revenge will be to continue to love and work toward peace,
even if I must change my entire life around in the wake of today's events.
Life will go on. PEACE.
Quest December 2001 Contents
Last updated June 12, 2005
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