February 2002
"…and what doth the Lord require
of thee, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
thy God?"
Do Justice
by Fredric J. Muir, minister, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis,
Maryland
AI was thinking about the directive of Micah 6:8, "do justice."
If you read the earlier verses, you can see that people were asking Micah
questions about rules and regulations. Their questions were very specific.
They were asking, "What do I need to do to get right with my God?
What do I need to do in order to lead a meaningful life?" But they
were asking in the language of their day: "How many more rams do
I have to sacrifice?" Sacrificing in those days was an important
part of religious ritual. They wanted to know, "What do we need to
do to be in right relationship; what are the rules and regulations of
this religion you are asking us to follow?"
Micah responds by saying something that might sound like this today: "Well,
I've got good news and bad news. The good news is, what's required of
you, what life expects out of you, is not nearly as legalistic as you
think. It's not nearly as legalistic as you've been used to," he
tells them. "It's not an issue of how many rams you sacrifice or
how many prayers you say. That's the good news. The bad news is, religion
is no longer a private affair. It's not so pietistic any more. What's
expected of you is to relate to other people. And while that may sound
easy, it's a lot harder than dotting every 'I' and crossing every 'T.'
Your religion is no longer private. You are expected to be public. You
are expected to be with other people." He continues by describing
what he means by this and the first thing he says is that they are expected
to do justice.
The word for justice in ancient Hebrew is "mishpat." You lose
a lot in the translation. When Micah told the people to "do justice,"
they knew exactly what he meant. You see, there are two words that are
used in the Hebrew Scriptures for justice. One of them, tzedakah, means
"righteousness." This is almost a state of being in justice.
The other, mishpat, means, "to do justice." It's active. Everybody
listening to Micah understood that.
In order to understand what it means to do justice, we've got to understand
what justice is. Justice can be understood on three levels. One is the
rational, or intellectual. Another is the spiritual. And a third level
is the physical, or material notion of justice.
Abraham Heschel was one of the great Jewish theologians and his was a
rational or intellectual approach (he was also a mystic and social activist).
Heschel writes about how justice is an interpersonal relationship. As
a relationship it's composed of two things: duty and rights. And that's
also what Micah's talking about. The word mishpat encompasses both of
these. You can't separate: duty and right. It's the right of someone to
have justice and it's the duty of someone to provide justice.
Lawrence Kushner tells this story: A long time ago in the northern part
of Israel, in the town of Safed, the richest man in town was sleeping
through Shabbat services. He awoke just long enough to hear the chanting
of the Torah verses from Leviticus 24:5-6 in which God instructs the children
of Israel to place 12 loaves of challah on a table in the ancient wilderness
tabernacle.
When services ended, the wealthy man thought that God had come to him
in his sleep and had asked him to bring 12 loaves of challah to God. The
rich man felt honored that God should single him out. He went home and
baked the bread.
Upon returning to the synagogue, he arranged the loaves and said to God,
"Thank You for telling me what You want of me." No sooner had
he gone than the poorest Jew in town entered the sanctuary. He spoke to
God. "O Lord, I am so poor. My family is starving; unless you perform
a miracle, we will perish." Then he opened the ark, and found 12
loaves of challah! "A miracle!" exclaimed the poor man. "
Blessed are You, O God, who answers our prayers." The challah ritual
continued for many years. Then, one day, the rabbi, detained in the sanctuary
longer than usual, watched the rich man place the dozen loaves in the
ark and the poor man redeem them.
The rabbi called the two men together and told them what they had been
doing.
"I see," said the rich man sadly, "God doesn't really eat
challah."
"I understand," said the poor man, "God hasn't been baking
challah for me after all."
They both feared that now God would no longer be present in their lives.
Then the rabbi asked them to look at their hands. "Your hands,"
he said to the rich man, "are the hands of God giving food to the
poor. And your hands," said the rabbi to the poor man, "also
are the hands of God, receiving gifts from the rich. So you see, God can
still be present in your lives. Continue baking and continue taking. Your
hands are the hands of God."
The rabbi doesn't call the rich man and the poor man together and tell
them they are fools. He does not send them on their way, insisting that
they give up their belief that God is actually present in their lives.
Instead he tells them, "You've got to have both the person baking
the bread and the person receiving the bread." He tells them to continue
doing what they're doing if they want to participate with God.
On a spiritual level, justice is the recognition of the inherent worth
and dignity of every person, one of our Unitarian Universalist principles.
It means recognizing every individual's integrity and value.
There's a wonderful story about Peter Maurin, who was one of the early
workers in the Catholic Worker Movement, one of the more radical social
justice movements within the Catholic Church. The name usually associated
with the Catholic Worker Movement is Dorothy Day. Maurin recalls his first
meeting with Day, which is an example of this spiritual notion of justice.
He had never met her before. She was sitting at a table, talking with
a woman who was, he quickly realized, quite drunk, yet determined to carry
on a conversation. The woman had a large purple-red birthmark along the
right side of her forehead. She kept touching it as she uttered one exclamatory
remark after another, none of which seemed to get the slightest rise from
the person sitting opposite her. He found himself increasingly confused
by what seemed to be an interminable, essentially absurd exchange taking
place between the two middle-aged women. When would it end-the alcoholic
ranting and the silent nodding, occasionally interrupted by a brief question,
which only served, maddeningly, to wind her up? Finally silence fell upon
the room. Dorothy Day asked the woman if she would mind an interruption.
She got up and went over to Maurin. She said, "Are you waiting to
talk with one of us?"
"One of us." She recognized the inherent worth and dignity of
the woman she was with. And Peter Maurin says that is how Dorothy Day
was unique. She understood that every individual has integrity. This is
another form of justice.
And finally, justice understood at the third level-the physical or material
level-is balance. Walter Bruggeman, who is a wonderful biblical scholar,
talks about justice as the sorting-out of what belongs to whom, and returning
it to them. I was struck with this idea while attending a conference recently.
A man attended, a FirstAmerican who lives on a reservation just outside
of Denver. He also has a Ph.D. and teaches at Iliff School of Theology.
During one of the conference's discussion periods, individuals were talking
about their sense of justice as wholeness, atonement, (at-onement), of
a time in our lives when we will have wholeness or completeness. After
everyone had spoken about what this meant to him or her and as a vision
of justice, the FirstAmerican man said, "You know, we don't think
this way. We are more temporal. We understand justice as balance. Balance
is here and now, not in some future time." Right now. Justice is
sorting out what belongs to whom and returning it to him or her. And certainly
FirstAmericans have a rightful claim to that.
So, on the intellectual level we recognize justice as interpersonal relations;
on the spiritual level we see justice as recognizing the inherent worth
and dignity of every person, and on the physical level, we see justice
as balance.
Now how do we incorporate a sense of justice into our lives? There are
four ways we can do it. The first way is one I'm sure everyone is familiar
with, and that is doing justice as social service, what we often think
of as charitable work.
At the end of the year people write out checks to different organizations.
That's a form of charitable work, as are collecting baskets for hungry
people, or volunteering at an HIV-AIDS program. We do all kinds of charitable
work. And it's important, really important.
What can come after social service work is social education. There is
a story that makes the connection between social service work and social
education. It's the story about a small village, a wonderful place, right
by the river. Everybody knew everybody and there was a sense of fulfillment.
One day a peasant was walking by the river. He looks over into the river
and sees a baby floating in the water. He jumps in, pulls the baby to
shore, and rescues the baby. The next day he's walking by the river in
the same place and there are two babies floating in the river. He calls
out for help and eventually two of the villagers jump in and pull the
babies ashore rescuing them. The next day there are four babies, the next
day eight babies. This continues with more and more babies coming down
the river. Soon it reaches the point where the whole town has to organize
in order to rescue the babies that are increasing in number. This goes
on and they keep rescuing more and more babies and become so well-known
throughout the area that clergy people would come and bless them for what
they were doing.
Finally one day somebody says, "You know, maybe we should go upstream
to find out where these babies are coming from." But the elders of
the town say, "We can't do that. If we take a group upstream there
won't be enough people to rescue the babies here." Now the person
who had made the suggestion was a lone voice. "I'm still sure that
we really should go up the river because even though we may lose a few
babies, we'll find the out what source of this is and we can put a stop
to it, and there will be no more babies floating down the river."
But the elders said, "No, we can't afford to do that. We must stay
here and continue to perform the social service of rescuing these babies."
So they continued to rescue more and more babies, but it got so overwhelming
that they couldn't rescue them all.
Social service eventually reaches the point where you have to do social
education. You have to go to the root cause to figure out why is this
happening. So you study, and you do research. Eventually, you reach a
point where you have to do your justice at a third level, and that is
the level of social witness. You have strong convictions. You have to
go and witness, you must take your values, what it is you believe, into
the public arena. After social service, social education, and social witness
then, there's social action. This is when a group comes together to change
policy, to change the minds of the decision makers, to change underlying
cuases. In doing these four kinds of justice, encompassing the three definitions
of justice, ti often is very easy to get sidetracked. We have to stay
aware and focused. We have to become, in the words of Kushner's story,
"God's hands." Or in my interpretation, we need to become the
"hands of life." We need to do justice as interpersonal relations.
We need to do justice as recognizing the inherent worth and dignity of
every person. We need to do justice as balance. We need to stay focused.
We need to be the hands of life because there is only us.
Quest February 2002 Contents
 From
Your Minister
by Rev. Jane Ranney Rzepka, minister, CLF
The Perfect Family
A colleague of mine, Denise Tracy, tells the story of adopting her
baby:
"We walked down the stairs. We had been watching a slide show on
fund-raising for the adoption agency. If they had asked, we'd have given
them anything just to let us out of the room and downstairs where our
child waited.
"For two years we had received reports on this child. I had dreamed
of burying my nose in her blue-black hair, kissing her cheeks and hugging
her sturdy little body and here we finally were, in Thailand, at the
adoption agency, one story above the room where our daughter awaited
us.
"Finally we were released. We walked into the hall and around the
corner. We began our descent down the stairs and then we stopped mid-stairway,
took each others' hands, tears rolling down our cheeks, and we watched
her. She chattered away in Thai, speaking to the toys, precisely placing
them in front of her.
"Her little red shoes, her white socks with lace trim, carefully
folded, showed her tan legs. Her white shorts with straps crossed over
the red blouse and her hair neatly combed, showed caring hands had prepared
for us. She was the most beautiful child we had ever seen. Our daughter.
"Our daughter is home with us now. Learning new words- nose, doll,
truck. And I think she is brilliant.
"The daughter of my dreams is sleeping in the next room and I rejoice.
For unto us a child was given. My heart is full to overflowing."
My colleague wrote that piece a long while ago, at a time when, once
the little girl was home and asleep in her crib, the big problems seemed
to be over. It couldn't have been long though, before "issues"
began to surface-the general issues of living life together. The new
family must have needed to develop some family values.
The people who began to promote "family values," and who eventually
became the pro-family movement, began in the late 1970's. Anti-feminists
joined anti-homosexuals, who joined the anti-pornography people, who
joined the prayer-in-the-public-schools advocates, who joined the pro-lifers.
They focused on that set of issues; they believed they could strengthen
families that way.
But now we're in another century, and all of us, whether we are conservatives
or liberals or something in between, care deeply about family values.
With the advent of new ways of terrorism, unmistakable interconnections
and clashes between cultures, religions, and styles of living, each
of us needs better grounding in and clarity about our fundamental values
regarding families.
Of course Unitarian Universalists believe in families and values as
much or more than anyone else. We understand that the world offers any
number of effective models of family configurations depending on one's
culture of origin, sexual orientation, economic circumstances, and simple
preferences. We know that the stereotypical Scandinavian bachelor uncles
who are members of a UU congregation in northern Minnesota, USA, can
tend each other as family and run the farm, and that maternal uncles
in our Unitarian congregations in the Khasi Hills, India, offer steady
support to the children in their families. Moms, dads, moms and dads,
extended families, families of one, blended families, families of choice:
we focus on committed love and integrity.
But the originators of the term "family values" were interested
not in just any family values, they wanted to go back to "traditional"
family values. That got me to wondering about the actual traditions
of American families: What were the traditions of, say, a model 17th
century family of European descent living in the Chesapeake colonies?
Eighty percent or so of these immigrants were indentured servants, the
majority of whom were boys under the age of 16. Life expectancy was
short: If a boy lived to age 20, he might expect to live until the ripe
old age of 43. Half of all women failed to reach 20. Right away we notice
the absence of grandparents in the traditional family.
Because so many people were committed to long terms as servants, they
married late and had only two or three children. People weren't married
long-half the marriages were ended by one of the partners dying within
seven years. Society was substantially made up of orphans, the remarried,
widows and widowers, stepparents and stepchildren. The father was the
primary parent, known by all to understand and nurture children better
than the woman, who was surely too irrational and unsteady to raise
children well.
So that's one set of traditions for early Americans: short marriages,
fathers parenting, and lots of blended families.
A second pattern of traditional American family life is Native American.
Although 17th century Native Americans were organized into some 240
distinct tribes, these tribes had some practices in common. Most tribes
lived communally. Children were encouraged to behave largely through
praise and public reward for achievement. (Europeans were shocked at
the lack of corporal punishment.) In some tribes, child rearing was
left to mothers or grandmothers, while among others, uncles, grandfathers,
and other male relatives played the active parenting roles. Some tribes
permitted premarital sex, some encouraged polygamy, and in some, a wife
was allowed to divorce her husband just by putting his belongings outside
her home. Native American family traditions: communal living, premarital
sex, permissive child rearing, polygamy, male parenting, and easy divorce.
A third traditional family pattern is that of 17th century African American
families. While African Americans lived in all of the 13 colonies, by
the end of the 17th Century, their numbers approached, for example,
almost 70 percent of the population of South Carolina, and 40 percent
of that of Virginia.
Slaves generally had few opportunities to establish a stable and independent
family life. In the American South, most slaves lived on plantations
with fewer than ten slaves; in the North most slaves lived with their
"masters" and were restricted from associating with other
slaves. The chances of finding a partner were slim. Also, there were
many more men than women. Nonetheless, when slaves were able to marry,
they typically lived in two-parent households with their children. Family
continuity was reinforced as parents passed craft skills down to their
children. As African American family patterns evolved, they appeared
to balance strong nuclear family ties with loyalties to an extended
kin group in order to gain the support necessary for survival under
conditions of slavery. The traditions of African American families:
For the most part unstable with the occasional nuclear family, supported
by relatives.
While it's interesting to look at historical families, obviously the
contemporary family values movement isn't trying to replicate family
life of yore. They seem to want something else, something that looks
more like the family life of the 1950's.
But the thing is, in the 1950's, real wages increased by more than they
had in the entire previous half-century. The government was generous
with education benefits. The government was generous with housing loans.
The government was generous with job training. Americans had access
to everything from inexpensive energy resources to steady employment.
More teenagers got pregnant in the '50's than get pregnant today, but
with those government subsidies and that economy, they could afford
to get married, and most did. If we liked the '50's (and many did not)-
we would need to go back to the kind of government assistance that we
offered back then.
The point is, Unitarian Universalists are not likely to adopt sentimental
vignettes of patterns of family life as "the way things are supposed
to be." We are more apt to think things through for ourselves.
Our way is to grow our own values and traditions. And we have. In fact,
as I thought about Unitarian Universalist families I have watched and
loved over the years, families of all sizes and configurations, with
or without children, I found it easy to paraphrase a list of what those
families seem to aim for:
1. Together we will work to create a family that is safe: a sanctuary
that is secure and dependable.
2. We will work to create an atmosphere of basic, unconditional love.
We will try to nurture the inherent good that's a part of each of us.
3. We will spend time together as a family.
4. Together we will work to hold true conversations: talking and listening-open
expressions of support, fear, amusement, triumph, upset, pride, and
inadequacy. Chitchat, arrangements, and the occasional complaint are
important parts of family life too.
5. Together we will try to take mutual care and responsibility for determining
and maintaining aspects of life important to our family.
6. We will try to foster one another's inner strength and independence,
curiosity, and growth.
7. We will develop and maintain family customs that are consistent with
our values.
8. We will support each other's good health practices, and try not to
worry one another by treating our own bodies in destructive ways.
9. We will have fun together.
10. Together we will treat the planet kindly, and work toward making
the world outside our family a better place for everyone.
That's my list. There are others, in various shapes, forms, and configurations.
For example, in the Beacon Press book The Measure of Our Success: A
Letter to My Children and Yours, by Marian Wright Edelman, the author's
college-age son writes:
"The 8 X 10 photograph of my parents' wedding occupies a prominent
place in both the living room of my house and the recesses of my mind.
A record of the pivotal event in the lives of my father and mother,
it also signifies my strikingly diverse heritage. In the middle of the
nuptial scene stand my parents, with my uncles and aunts, now long since
gray, and grandparents, some since gone, at their side. To my father's
right, the group are Minneapolis Conservative Jews, three generations
removed from Russia. . . .Grandpa supported his entire family from age
twelve, when he peddled papers on the freezing corners of St. Paul for
nickels and dimes. . . .To the left of my mother, the wedding participants
are Black Baptists from Bennettsville, South Carolina. They stare fiercely
into my eyes, urging me to carry on a tradition forged with sweat, toil,
and pride in the cotton field and the pulpit.
". . .Three lessons in particular represent what I have come to
see as the legacy of my ancestors:
"1. Don't feel entitled to anything you don't sweat and struggle
for.
"2. Never give up. You can make it no matter what comes. Nothing
worth having is ever achieved without a struggle.
"3. Always remember that you are never alone. You are loved unconditionally.
There is nothing you can ever say or do that can take away your parents'
love or God's love.
"When I am feeling paralyzed by a task that seems too difficult,
I remember the love that lies at the core of my family and their legacy
to me. The love gives strength, and I can move again."
These days, more than ever, when we are living during such uncertain
times, we need families and family values.
Imagine walking down the stairs in Thailand and watching a toddler wearing
little red shoes. Imagine bringing her home. Imagine creating a family.
Imagine the values you want to practice. Live your religion.n
The Church of the Larger Fellowship offers its members library resources
and curricula to help get started, and e-mail lists for those who appreciate
conversation. You may want to take advantage of our Website (www.uua.org/clf)
and of our occasional on-line courses. Our religious educator, Betsy
Williams, is in the midst of creating a new program, "Between Sundays,"
for families with children who are looking for activities at home in
addition to those found in our publications, uu&me and Connections.
Jane Rzepka
Minister
Quest February 2002 Contents
REsources for Living
by By Betsy Hill Williams, Director of Religious Education, CLF
When Jane told me the topic of her sermon for this month's issue of
Quest, I thought, "Wow, she's brave." In all my years as both
an elementary school guidance counselor and a religious educator, I've
avoided the words "family values," partly because of the political
load the term carries but also because I've never found a satisfactory
definition for myself. I know what values are and I also know a bit
about "valuing"-the process by which people come to hold certain
beliefs and establish certain patterns of behavior that reflect these
beliefs. But I've never been comfortable defining "family values"
as anything other than the very specific values that my family holds.
Even then, I know that the relative importance of our personal values
will differ among us and change for each of us over time. So, Jane's
sermon leads me to ask, "What are your family's values?" and
"How are they
important in your life?"
To guide you in answering these questions, I turned to the seminal work,
Values Clarification, written over 25 years ago by Sidney Simon, Leland
Howe, and Howard Kirschenbaum. The values-clarification approach is
concerned with the process of valuing, more than the content of the
values themselves. Valuing involves: freely and actively choosing one's
beliefs and behaviors, prizing and affirming one's beliefs and behaviors,
and acting on one's beliefs, with some consistency or pattern. The strategies
presented are designed to help participants become aware of the beliefs
they prize and would be willing to stand up for, encourage consideration
of alternative modes of thinking and acting, and establish whether their
actions match their stated beliefs.
Below you'll find an exercise, similar in style to those offered in
Values Clarification, to help you identify your personal values, and
how your behavior reflects those values.
Clearly this exercise can only approximate the full experience of reading
and testing yourself using the original material. If you or members
of your family are inspired to do more, I hope you will consider borrowing
Values Clarification from the CLF Library or try to obtain a copy from
a local library.
As UUs, we consider some of the values that are held by others to be
secular-like freedom, tolerance, compassion, and honesty-to be tied
very closely to our religion. Every day we are confronted with choices
that require placing one value above another. Individually, and as families,
we make these choices based on many things: the strength of our convictions,
the social and economic culture in which we live, the pressures we feel
from those around us, to name just a few. In this exercise there are
no right and wrong answers: choosing one value merely expresses a preference,
it does not mean you reject or do not honor the other value. All options
reflect positive values.
Read each sentence stem and the two alternate answers aloud. Do not
read the value that is named in parentheses. Ask each person to chose
one answer. Discuss why you chose what you did .Can you see the connection
between your personal reason and the value named in parentheses? Discuss
the consequences of both choices. In this way you link values to behavior
and consequences.
What makes you happiest?
-Getting all A's and B's on your report card (achievement, success)
-Having a week off from school/work (freedom, independence)
A friend makes fun of a woman dressed in a traditional Indian sari.
Would you
-Ignore the comments (loyalty)
-Ask your friend not to do that (tolerance, respect)
If you see someone shoplifting, would you
-Look the other way (freedom, individual rights)
-Tell the store-owner (honesty)
If you had an extra $20, would you
-Buy a new CD (personal ownership)
-Treat a friend to the movies (friendship, community)
You promise your friend to keep a secret; then she tells you she is
going to run away. Would you
-Let her go and not tell anyone (loyalty)
-Tell her parents (compassion, honesty)
You've been playing piano for 5 years and decide to quit because
it's too much work. Should your
parents
-Let you quit (respect, compassion)
-Ask you to continue with fewer lessons every month (achievement, success)
If your friend dresses oddly, would you
-Tell him you think so and suggest changes (compassion, honesty)
-Not say anything at all (respect for differences, tolerance)
A veteran player on your varsity team is benched because a school rule
allows the youngest kids in the school to be on the team and one of
them is a better player than she is. What would you do?
-Nothing (competition, success)
-Ask to have the rule reviewed (fairness, compassion, justice)
Your friend has a new jacket that you think is really ugly. She asks
you if you like it. Would you
-Say "yes" so as not to hurt her feelings (compassion, loyalty)
-Say "no" and explain what you don't like (honesty)
Quest February 2002 Contents
The Rock of Ages at the Taj Mahal
by Meg Barnhouse, somebody from somewhere
In July of 1985 I was on a bus in the middle of India with 40 Muslims,
Hindus, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and Moonies. We were touring the
world for two months to study each others' religions.
We were on our way to the Taj Mahal, four hours from our hotel in New
Delhi. The bus was painted turquoise to ward off evil spirits and hung
all over with garlands of marigolds. The day was hot; the road was dusty
and full of holes. I was sitting next to Gary from Alabama, who had
been raised Southern Baptist but was now a Moonie, and we talked as
the bus bumped and jolted us down the road.
I love talking to people who are on the fringes of my religious experience.
Hearing about exotic beliefs and strange practices is one of my favorite
hobbies. The Moonies certainly seemed out there on the fringe to me,
so I had been pestering them to tell me what they believed. We had a
good time questioning each other, sometimes debating, often laughing.
Gary and I had gotten to be friends. One of the things we all did to
pass the time on long bus rides was to look through each other's wallets,
perusing pictures of loved ones, mocking driver's license photos, flipping
through insurance cards, love notes, and bank receipts.
Another thing we did to pass the time on long bus and plane rides was
to tell what we'd be doing this day and this hour if we were home. It
was a Saturday, and I was telling Gary that my husband and I would be
getting ready to go over to our friends' house for supper. We would
grill chicken, eat vegetables with spinach dip, and sit in the dining
room under the black velvet painting of Elvis. The painting had been
an anniversary gift from us, and they would hang it up on Saturday nights
when we came over. After supper we would move to the living room and
sing hymns around the piano, starting with the Navy Hymn about "those
in peril on the sea," working up to what we called "blood
hymns." Blood hymns were the old-timey ones about the blood of
Jesus, the ones with the questionable theology and stirring tunes that
so many of us secretly love.
Gary said, "I know about blood hymns-I grew up Southern Baptist!"
We started singing. We harmonized on "There's Power in the Blood"
and "There is a Fountain Filled With Blood" and "Are
You Washed in the Blood?" We had a fine time, and we got applause
from the Sikhs who were sitting behind us with their long beards, white
turbans, and curved daggers on their belts. They sang us some Sikh songs
and we applauded. Then the Buddhist monks from Nepal sitting across
the aisle were moved to chant, and the sound of their voices resonated
through the turquoise bus, making our breastbones vibrate. That hot
afternoon for hours we heard Russian Orthodox hymns, songs from Finland,
Rasta gospel from Jamaica, and a spell for making yourself impervious
to fire from a witch doctor named André who lives in Surinam
with his 10 beautiful wives and 47 children.
These days, when I hear about the peaceable kingdom where the lion will
lie down with the lamb, when I read about the clamor of nations struggling
toward peace, I think about that day we sang our spirituals for each
other, the day when Christ and Shiva clapped for each other and sang
in harmony on a dusty road in a turquoise bus hung with marigolds.
Excerpted from The Rock of Ages at the Taj Mahal, Unquiet Meditations
by Meg Barnhouse, published by Skinner House Books and available from
the CLF library.
Quest February 2002 Contents
CLF Member Profile: Julie Fitzer
by Amber Beland, ministerial intern, Church of the Larger Fellowship
Julie Fitzer is a new member of the Church of the Larger Fellowship
who joined in the summer of 2001. She is a junior at Washington and
Lee University in Lexington, Va. with a double major in philosophy and
psychology. She is planning to go to grad school to study cognition,
sensation, and perception. The nearest UU church is more than an hour
away.
Julie grew up Methodist in Catonsville, Md. and became a Unitarian Universalist
last summer. She'd been thinking about taking this step for a long time.
Julie first learned about Unitarian Universalism while doing a high
school report on Ralph Waldo Emerson, and she found that she loved his
philosophy. She has visited two Maryland Unitarian Universalist Fellowships-one
in Chester River, and another in Towson. The gatherings in Chestertown
took the form of a summer discussion series, and the people there were
friendly and understood her need to explore alternative faiths. Julie
found the Towson UU Church building to be very beautiful and the service
to be spirit-restoring. She discovered CLF when searching on the internet
through the UUA Website, and though she is one of the younger people
on the CLF email list, she finds the experience of carrying on electronic
correspondence with members of a congregation she has never met to be
a real benefit. She says that hearing from the older folks is helpful
as they have wisdom that she doesn't have. She has particularly enjoyed
discussions about issues of parenting and having children-this provides
a 'reality check' for her own views about the subject. Julie appreciates
being able to correspond as a peer with people many times her age.
Julie enjoys oil painting and drawing and reading books in French, but
her favorite activity, she says, is laughing. Julie doesn't know what
she wants to do in the future but she hopes that her deep commitment
to community service will involve her in mentoring relationships with
children, especially children of middle- and high-school age. As for
making a living, she thinks that she would greatly enjoy doing research
in cognitive science or in other, similar areas of psychology.
Julie says, "I like CLF and Unitarian Universalism because the
people I've met are serious about living their lives with integrity."
Julie is one of the people helping to start a Young Adult e-mail list
here at CLF To subscribe, contact the CLF office at clf@uua.org for
a username and password. We are glad to welcome her to the CLF family.
We like to profile CLF members in Quest when we have space. If you
know a member who might make an interesting profile call CLF Intern
Amber Beland at 617-948-6170 or e-mail her at abeland@uua.org.
Quest February 2002 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
read what you send us. And we'll appreciate it.
Quest February 2002 Contents
How About You at GA2002?
If you'd like to represent the Church of the Larger Fellowship at General
Assembly this year-it's not too soon to start planning. CLF is entitled
to have 22 delegates at the General Assembly in Quebec City, Quebec
on June 20 to 24, 2002 and if you are interested in serving as a delegate,
please contact the CLF office before March 31 to apply. As a delegate
you will be able to vote on Statements of Conscience, UUA bylaw changes,
resolutions, and Actions of Immediate Witness.
In addition, you will be able to attend the CLF annual meeting of the
Board of Directors and CLF members, meet our minister, the Rev. Jane
Rzepka, meet the CLF staff, visit-or even volunteer at-the CLF booth,
and attend the CLF worship service. This has become a very well attended
event at General Assembly. Watch this space for more news about Jane's
sermon and the music CLF will be presenting.
If you think you'd like to participate in GA2002 by representing CLF
as a delegate, your costs, in addition to your travel, include adult
full-time registrations ($240 per adult), hotel rooms for about $130
a night (this figure may increase), and meals.
Call CLF at 617-958-6166 and speak to Lorraine or e-mail us at CLF@uua.org
before March 31 to indicate your interest.
Did you know that CLF sells classic chalice jewelry?
Contact Kathy Rogers at
716-229-2018 or go to our Website at: www.uua.org/clf/jewelry
.
Quest February 2002 Contents
My Symphony
by William Henry Channing
To live content with small means;
To seek elegance rather than luxury,
To be worthy, not respectable and wealthy, not rich;
To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;
To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with an open heart;
To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.
In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and
unconscious, grow up through the commonplace.
This is to be my symphony.
William Henry Channing, 1810-1884, nephew of the
Unitarian minister William Ellery Channing, was a
Unitarian minister, editor, social activist, and
Transcendentalist.
Last updated June 12, 2005
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