November 2002
Giving thanks has nothing to do with what produced
the gift; it is, rather, a way of perceiving our life. Even in the midst
of hurt and disappointment, when we see ourselves in a universe that
gives us life and touches us with love, we praise.
-Raymond Baughan
Giving Thanks
by Daniel Budd, parish minister, the First Unitarian Society
of Cleveland, Shaker Heights, Ohio
Around Thanksgiving, just about every year, my thoughts return to a
sermon by Peter Fleck from his book, The Mask of Religion. In it, he
raises an important question. He asks: “. . . do we have a right
to be thankful as long as others are excluded from sharing in the blessings
we enjoy?” His answer, it seems to me, strikes at the heart of
the issue.
“The answer to this question,” he writes, “lies in the
realization that thankfulness, while it may relate to specifics, has
an absolute character. To give thanks is a basic human need, an essential
element in our relationship to the universe. Thankfulness is independent
of specifics.”
Many sermonizers, he writes later on, assume that the Pilgrims, following
their tragic first winter in their new home, were thankful for having
survived. “It seems to me,” Fleck says, “that they were
able to survive because they were thankful.”
Thankful for life, no matter what. Not in spite of, or even because
of. Thankfulness no matter what. Thankfulness for life itself.
Despair is an enemy of thankfulness. Why bother? What is the world coming
to? Is there any hope? What’s the use? The despair in all these
questions can skewer the soul, deaden it. Such despair can ultimately
destroy us.
Yet, a deeply held attitude of thankfulness can save us from despair.
Out of thankfulness, hope can arise from the heart and cry “Wonder!”
On speaking of thankfulness Fleck says he is “reminded of the words
Shakespeare put in the mouth of Henry IV:
‘. . . .O Lord that lends me life,
Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.’
It is significant,” Fleck says, “That Henry addresses his
prayer to the life-giving God. ‘O Lord that lends me life.’
It is as if he equates being thankful with having life.”
Thankfulness is a way that is simple, yet so difficult. It is an attitude
that is hard to attain, and yet so necessary. It is our strength in
the midst of weakness, our lamp to light whatever darkness may befall
us.
“In everything, give thanks,” wrote St. Paul years ago. So
could he write today.
Quest November 2002 Contents
To Be Grateful
by James Ishmael Ford, minister, First Unitarian Society in
Newton, Massachusetts
Thanksgiving. I really love Thanksgiving. I mean I love the whole thing.
I love the fact that the major focus for many in North America is getting
together with the family and eating. I love the fact that Thanksgiving
is about nothing so much as pleasure in the moments of our lives, respite
in the rush and worry of existence. It is a celebration of joy.
Sometimes it happens that we have to struggle to celebrate Thanksgiving-it
can come when things are not going well. And for some among us, it is
the day one remembers that one’s people have been conquered and
one’s culture has been laid to ruin. Thanksgiving, for many of
us then, is a holiday that is shadowed and nuanced. In some ways what
actually gives it its power is that it is joy in the face of sadness.
Here joy exists with echoes of something sad. Here we face the powerful
and true. Not always nice, but as we feel it fully, definitely something
deep and real.
And so, maybe this holiday can be particularly useful to us in the season
we currently inhabit, or maybe more correctly, that inhabits us. Here
we are, washed as we have been in terror and death, the taking up of
arms, witnessing the seeds of war thrown wide upon rocky soil. And even
our own personal losses, close to home. Of course it sometimes feels
like too much.
But then there is Thanksgiving. Here we find hints that there is more
for us, as we allow our hearts to open fully. With our hours of sadness
and moments of joy, I suggest a reflection on that central emotion of
Thanksgiving, gratitude. Gratitude can guide us toward something precious
and holy.
Things have been hard. So, how do we actually engage with all the hard
things? How do we find joy? I think of that old familiar story of the
poor man who goes to his rabbi. He tells the rabbi how hard it has been,
as his family of eight must make do in a tiny, one-room house. “The
six children,” cries the man, “roll like the sea. They are
in constant motion. My wife and I never have a moment alone. I can’t
stand it anymore.”
The rabbi tells the man that if he will do exactly as instructed, the
man and his wife, as well as their children, will learn gratitude. The
man agrees. So the rabbi asks him how many animals he owns. The man
describes the livestock of a small holder in old Middle Europe. This
includes chickens, rabbits, a goat, a cow, and a horse. The rabbi says,
“Move all your livestock into the house.”
The man is aghast, but he agrees. So, he goes home and does as he’s
been instructed. The next day he returns and says, “It is like
living in Babel! I can’t imagine it worse. The chicken droppings
alone are enough to make you sick.” The rabbi says, “Fine.
Why don’t you move the chickens back out of the house?” Gratefully
the man goes home and does it.
The next day the man returns and says, “Well, the chickens are
gone. But the goat! Oh, the goat is horrible. It’s eaten half of
the only table- cloth we own, and it jumps up on top of the chairs and
our bed, making havoc everywhere.” “Well,” the rabbi
suggests, "Why don’t you go home and remove the goat?"
Which the man does.
The next day he returns and tells the rabbi, "Have you ever lived
in a room with a cow? It is too disgusting to describe.” “Well,”
the rabbi says, “Why don’t you remove the cow?” And it
goes on, next the rabbits, then the horse. And finally, only the family
remains.
The man goes to his rabbi and says, “I don’t understand. But,
we are filled with joy and gratitude. Our children are happy and calm.
My wife and I are at peace. Thank you.”
We don’t know how good we have it, until it really gets bad. And
this is a legitimate lesson. Things can get worse. And I suggest, there
are deeper places we can go than simply realizing how good we have it.
I draw again upon the Jewish tradition-this time from the Book of Job.
Remember all the horrors in Job’s life-the loss of his children,
his servants, his livestock, his home, and the affliction of painful
sores all over his body? In the face of them Job cries out to the divine
his anguish and fear and demands justice. He stops one step short of
cursing God. But he does rebuke the divine, and bitterly.
Job declares that God “does not care . . .” And more, Job
bitterly laments that the divine “murders both the pure and the
wicked. When the plague brings sudden death,” Job says, “God.
. . laughs at the anguish of the innocent. He hands the earth to the
wicked and blindfolds its judges’ eyes.” I’m sure everyone
reading this understands the feeling behind this rebuke.
Job looks around at the terror and horror, the profound sadness of our
lives and says of God, “Who does it, if not he?” This is the
bill of charges; this is the list of horrors. And this is not stuff
that we can use to make us feel better by comparison.
Without a doubt my favorite commentator on the book of Job is Stephen
Mitchell. He says of this moment when Job makes his complaint, and God
responds that “God will not hear Job, but Job will see God.”
Here we move beyond the simple frame of comparison and even of good
and evil. At such a moment our best reflections, our purest analyses,
all fall away. Here we move to the deep waters of existence, where every
idea is shattered.
And it is at this place where the divine lurks, a monster of our dreams.
Here, when we shut up and just notice, we are given a tumble into what
some may call the divine’s presence. The world becomes unveiled
at moments of raw confrontation. And it is big. And we may become totally
consumed, you and I, in the face of it, like moths before a fire.
So, what response do we Unitarian Universalists have for such moments?
Another Unitarian, E. E. Cummings, sings of it all: “I thank You
God for most this amazing/day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees/and
a blue true dream of sky; and for everything/which is natural which
is infinite which is yes/(I who have died am alive again today,/and
this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth/day of life and of
love and wings: and of the gay/great happening illimitably earth)/how
should tasting touching hearing seeing/breathing any-lifted from the
no/of all nothing-human merely being/doubt unimaginable You?/(now the
ears of my ears awake and/now the eyes of my eyes are opened)”
At these moments of great sadness, of broken hearts, if we are lucky,
we step away, mysteriously refreshed, as we could never have dreamed.
Out of that experience, out of that full confrontation, we can return
to the world of the relative, of good and ill, of choices that count,
with some new understanding. It is, I suggest, an understanding that
allows us to celebrate Thanksgiving for both its joy in family and food,
and its sorrow in lost nations. And, I suggest, it is the perfect holiday
for these difficult times.
If, that is, we don’t turn away. So look. So feel. So know your
whole being.
This is a good day.
REsources for Living
by Dan Harper, interim director of religious education,
Church of the Larger Fellowship
In last month’s column, I asked the question, “Who are
the Unitarian Universalists?” I introduced you to two well-known
Unitarian Universalists, Samantha Smith, a 10-year-old girl who was
called the “Ambassador of Peace,” and Tim Berners-Lee, inventor
of the World Wide Web. I’m convinced that a good way to find
out who Unitarian Universalists are is to find out about the lives
of famous UUs.
What, however, about ordinary Unitarian Universalists? What happens,
for instance, when Unitarian Universalist values differ from widely
accepted local values? In this month’s issue of Quest, the sermon
by the Rev. Ken Sawyer looks at the responses of ordinary Unitarian
Universalists to the use of the word God in the American Pledge of
Allegiance. Many CLF families have strong ties to the United States,
and Ken Sawyer’s sermon can serve as a great discussion topic
for those families.
I’d like to suggest an additional approach: families can learn
about ordinary Unitarian Universalists around the world. Below, you'll
find short introductions to Unitarians in the Khasi Hills in India,
Unitarian Universalists in New Zealand, and Universalists in the Philippines.
After learning about how these religious liberals live out their values,
you and your family can make comparisons about how you live out your
values in your part of the world.
A common thread runs through these Unitarian Universalist communities.
Whether they are doing faith healing in the Philippines, or running
schools in the Khasi Hills, Unitarian Universalists around the world
are trying to find ways to make the world a better place for other
people.
Do you agree? What does your family find in common with other Unitarian
Universalists around the world? Write to me and let me know what you
think!
1. Unitarians in the Khasi Hills of India
Unitarianism came to the Khasi Hills of India in 1887, when Hajor
Kissor Singh became dissatisfied with the religion preached by Christian
missionaries working in the area. He found out about Unitarianism
as it was practiced in London and Boston at that time, and he began
to spread his version of Unitarianism throughout his native Khasi
Hills. Today, there about 9,000 Khasi Unitarians.
In January, I chanced to hear three Khasi Unitarians who were visiting
North America speak about their lives. Problems that they face include
poverty and lack of economic development in parts of the Khasi Hills.
But they also have many dedicated members, some of whom work in Unitarian
schools that help promote literacy and economic
improvement.
If your family has teenagers, you can read the March, 2001 issue of
Quest together. You can find it in the Quest archive on the members
page on our Web site (http//www.clfuu.org/quest/archives.html).
Find out more about Khasi culture online at http://www.khasilit.com/,
where you'll find a Khasi poem and story in translation, and an article
on the youth problem in the Khasi Hills. Your teenagers may like to
discuss what it would be like to grow up as a religious liberal in
the Khasi Hills.
2. Unitarian Universalists in Auckland, New Zealand
There were Unitarians in Australia and New Zealand beginning in the
mid-19th century, and today there are eight Unitarian Universalist
congregations down under. The Unitarian Universalist congregation
in Auckland, New Zealand, was founded in 1898 and today, there are
about 70 members. The Rev. Max Moss, minister of the Auckland UU church
in the 1990's, told me that life in New Zealand can be quite different
from life in North America. Max said that, for instance, World Cup
sailing is so important that he used to bring a television into the
church for the diehard sailing fans, when races were televised on
Sundays. Holidays are different, too. Obviously, Christmas happens
in the middle of summer, but there are also holidays that most North
Americans have never heard of, such as ANZAC Day. On the other hand,
social action projects like donating food to the local food bank would
feel familiar to many of us around the world.
Your family can learn more about ANZAC Day with an online CLF lesson
plan (written by Max Moss’s wife, Linda Landau Moss) from a past
issue of Connections at http://www.uua.org/clf/connections/Spring/anzac.html;
or write to me for a photocopy. Visit the Auckland church's web site
at http://www.unitariansofauckland.org.nz/
and look at the “Junior Church section.” This could be fun
for your family.
3. Universalists in the Philippines
The 15 Unitarian Universalist congregations in the Philippines today
grew out of the Universalist Church of the Philippines, started in
1954 by the Rev. Toribio Quimada. With 19 ministers and between 400
and 1,000 members, the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines
(UUCP) is now affiliated with the UUA. Quimada was brutally murdered
in 1988, but the UUCP continues.
The Rev. Marlin Lavanhar, minister at the UU congregation in Tulsa,
Oklahoma, wrote this about the UUCP: “The biggest draw for gaining
new members into UUCP has been the faith healing department. Amazingly,
the UU faith healers have an incredible success curing chronic and
supposedly terminal illness. The faith healing department is an honest
and upstanding organization. . . they accept no money for their services.
These men and women are some of the most selfless and dedicated people
I have ever encountered.”
The book Maglipay Universalist by Fredric Muir (2001), available from
the UUA Bookstore and the CLF lending library, can serve as a starting
point for discussions with teens. This book also contains a church
school curriculum for children
8 to 11; some of the activities can be adapted for home use.
Quest November 2002 Contents
“Under God”?
by Ken Sawyer, minister, First Parish, Wayland, Massachusetts
In times of ordeal, most people are good about rallying ’round.
They put aside their differences and pitch in to help, to comfort
each other, drawing strength and hope from the sense of their connectedness.
In the days and weeks after September 11, that spirit was much on
display in the United States.
People who attempted to raise points of view that would threaten America’s
sense of unity-from any angle, from Pat Robertson’s to Susan
Sontag’s-were appreciated by a few but harshly assailed by popular
opinion. It seemed the people did not want debate, however thoughtful
or sincere. Americans seemed to want, more than anything, to be one.
I have a sense, though, that that sense of national unity is beginning
to fragment or fray. This is hardly surprising. Two causes come quickly
to mind. First, for a variety of reasons, people are trying to associate
the mood of common endeavor with their own pet project, which could
be low, low financing on a new car they have to sell, or some tax
plan, or a tendentious view of human history.
Second, despite the ubiquitous sense of pain, loss, anxiety, and fear,
there are actual issues at hand about which people disagree passionately.
If you doubt it, next time you are with more than one or two other
people, ask, “So what do you guys think about our policy toward
Israel?” Or just observe, in as neutral a voice as you can affect,
“Boy, there are sure a lot of flags around these days.”
I find feelings run high, and quickly.
The whole question of the use of the word God in our national discourse
is an excellent case in point. I think the way it has been used amounts
to another attempt to commandeer America’s unity of utter dismay
to advance a particular political point of view, one with which I
disagree.
What happened for me was, I started seeing signs out in front of businesses
that said, “United We Stand” and right under it, “In
God We Trust.” Those two don’t go together, if the “we”
who stand united is meant to be the people of this country. Because
some of us believe in more than one god, or no god, or a goddess,
or whatever. When it comes to Americans, in God only some of us trust,
and I think we all have a commitment not to care one way or the other,
however much we may ourselves believe in God or not.
But it’s not a simple matter, is it? After all, “In God
We Trust” is our national motto. The words are on our coins,
on our bills, on our courtroom walls, and if a current national effort
succeeds, they will be on the walls of our children’s classrooms
as well. It can seem as if this is a theistic, even a Christian, or
at least a Judeo-Christian nation, and always has been, one nation
under God, as it says in the pledge of allegiance. But it didn’t
always say that, and it shouldn’t say that now.
In talking to Unitarian Universalist children about this, I say most
people love their country, whatever it is. It’s good if they
love the whole world, too, but most people love their country in some
way, and there are lots of things to love about the United States.
Then I say there are lots of ways of loving a country, like being
kind. I mention other things that some people do, like voting, or
keeping up with the news if you aren’t still a kid. Some people
love the country that way; some people don’t. Eventually I get
around to loving the flag, which is important to some people as a
way to love the country, but isn’t to others. “Some people
even pledge allegiance to the flag,” I say, “and children
may be asked to do that sometimes in school. You may really like doing
that. It may seem like a good way of saying that you love the country.
So you can say that if you want. . . but if you don’t want, you
don’t have to. In America, one of the things we most love about
our country is its freedom, especially its religious freedom, and
if you don’t want to talk about ‘one nation, under God,’
you certainly don’t have to. Me, I never do. But if you want
to say the pledge, that’s fine to do, too, if that’s what
you believe.”
I encourage parents to consider talking about the subject with their
children, because I know at least the older children can understand
that it’s not just a question of being true to your own faith
when you’re asked to spout theological doctrine, but it’s
also about being true to our national commitment to keep the state
out of the business of fostering religion, particularly any one version
(like belief in God). So even if you did believe in God, you might
want to refuse to acquiesce in a practice so antithetical to American
freedom.
I know the older children might get that, because I was ten when I
got it myself. That was
the year the words “under God” were added to the pledge,
and I knew that was un-American. I have to confess, my 10-year-old
political consciousness had already been raised because it was 1954,
the year of the Army-McCarthy hearings, therefore the year that the
Sawyers finally got a television set. So I saw Sen. Joseph McCarthy
in action, and I knew he was a bad guy. Not that I imagined the Communists
were the good folk. No, to me heroism was that even if you had no
connections to the Communist party, you still refused to answer their
questions. The Committee had no business asking questions about one’s
political views-they should have been off limits to governmental intrusion.
So then along comes the change in the pledge, and I wouldn’t
do it, and I never have. Mostly I’d say the pledge, but without
those two words. These days I don’t say it at all. By now I know
more of the history. In 1940 the Supreme Court upheld the expulsion
of two Jehovah’s Witnesses from a public school in Pennsylvania
for refusing to say the pledge, which their religion forbids them
to do. It was a disastrously bad decision, followed by ugly incidents
of intimidation against Jehovah’s Witnesses, most famously in
Kennebunk, Maine. In 1943 the Supreme Court reversed itself in another
case involving Jehovah’s Witnesses. This gives me a chance to
quote the notable sentences by Justice Jackson, writing for the Court:
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation,
it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be
orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion
or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If
there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not
now occur to us.”
Children are not required to take part in the pledge, and teachers,
while they may be expected to initiate the pledge in their classes
on occasion, need not say the words themselves. Or-here’s an
idea that’s been going around of late, as the pledge is being
initiated more often at schools and other public gatherings-people
can tinker with the wording. You can leave out “under God,”
but one person substitutes the word, “many faiths”-“one
nation, many faiths, with liberty and justice for all.” Another
person just says the beginning and end: “I pledge allegiance
to … liberty and justice for all.”
It reminds me of the story of the child who grew curious that every
week in church her father recited the Apostle’s Creed, even though
she knew he was an agnostic and a skeptic. She asked him about that.
He replied cheerily that it was really no problem, he just left off
the first three words: “I believe in.”
Tinkering with the text on an official level has been going on from
the beginning. The pledge was written in the summer of 1892 by Francis
Bellamy for the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s landing in the
New World. It was published in a popular children’s magazine
where he worked, and used in Columbus Day celebrations all over the
country, which were planned by a committee of state superintendents
of education, a committee Bellamy chaired.
Originally, the pledge said, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag
and the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with
Liberty and Justice for all.” He had thought of saying “with
Equality, Liberty and Justice for all,” but knew the other committee
members opposed equality for women and African-Americans.
A few months after it was first published, a small change was made
in the pledge [“and to the Republic”]. In 1923 and 1924
the National Flag Conference, under the leadership of the American
Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, changed “my
Flag” to “the flag of the United States of America,”
apparently wanting to make sure that the millions of new American
immigrants understood what flag was intended. Bellamy disliked the
change, but his protest was ignored.
In its updated form, his pledge finally received official recognition
from Congress in 1942 as part of an act regarding the use of the flag.
And then came 1954 and the last official change, adding God. It was
that kind of a time about then. The tag line “So help me God”
was added to the oaths of office for federal judges and justices.
In 1955, the phrase “In God We Trust” was required on all
coins and bills. The year after that, “In God We Trust”
became our national motto. Our motto always had been “E Pluribus
Unum,” ever since 1782. “Out of many, one”.
There have been at least three legal challenges to the theistic addition
that have reached federal appeals courts, but each court has ruled
that the use of the word God is not religious, which I don’t
understand. But I do understand that even if it’s legal so far,
to my mind it’s still not right. It’s not in the best American
tradition. As Horace Greeley said, “Almighty God is not the source
of authority and power in our government; the people of the United
States are.”
The people who drafted the Constitution chose not religious but secular
government, which takes no interest in religion except to protect
its exercise.
The United States is not the country some like to imagine, devoted
to Jesus and God and the Bible. Oh, most Americans may be so in their
personal practice and in their beliefs. But the numbers grow yearly
of those who are not part of the national consensus. The scholar and
author Diana Eck writes that the United States is the most religiously
diverse society on earth.
But just as important as the practical reality is the age-old national
commitment, so humane and essential, to be a people who do not imagine
that a person’s citizenship or goodness or worth depends on any
religious test, a people whose public life struggles to be free of
every religious confinement, a people devoted to freedom of faith.
In times of ordeal, we need to rally ’round and stand united
in that trust.
Quest November 2002 Contents
Joie!
An excerpt from a sermon by Jane Rzepka, minister, Church
of the Larger Fellowship, Boston, Massachusetts (at General Assembly,
2002, Quebec City)
I was reading a story about a train. A long, big-shot train that
goes all the way across Canada. The train stopped. The conductor opened
the door. The wind was howling on this summer night, and the sky was
pitch dark and there were no city lights, and not only no city lights
but no evidence of a house or anything out there on the prairie, except
way off in the distance, where a little town seemed to be, way out
in Manitoba. A young woman climbed off the train with her suitcases
and started walking, walking along the road just after midnight, toward
the faint lights of the village. And the train snorted and groaned
and got out of there as soon as it could.
The details I’m describing about the train and the girl are from
a Quebequois story by Gabrielle Roy. It is a story about traveling,
traveling in Canada-or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the
young woman’s on a journey, a quest.
She is alone, as we all are, really. As the scene unfolds, our heroine
is searching for the true Canada-for her this will be a spiritual
grounding-and in the course of this quest she asks a lot of questions.
The girl comes out of the night into a tavern full of strangers, or
rather, she is the stranger, and the questions don’t go over
very well. They think she is nosy and her questions put them on their
guard. Later she says to herself, “I didn’t know yet that
announcing the search for truth puts everybody on the defensive. There
was something like
tangible fear around me.”
Unitarian Universalists, too, in the midst of spiritual journeys,
sometimes learn the lesson that announcing the search for truth isn’t
often met with enthusiasm. You speculate aloud about the graphic symbolism
of communion wine, or whether the Hannukah story is based on history
in point of fact, or whether we’ll be seeing Aunt Michelle in
heaven, and the people you are talking with turn out not to be supportive
of what you may call “the search for truth.” They call your
questions blasphemy. When we question the truth, whether it’s
religious truth, the truth about the way we live our values, the truth
about who we think we are, indeed we are likely to feel something
like tangible fear around us.
Suddenly, we are the stranger, the foreigner, the party-crasher. We
can no longer say what we mean. We speak the wrong language. The young
woman gets off the train. She is a strange passer-by. When she walks
through the tavern door the conversation, in full swing up to then,
stops. She is alone amidst the people in the tavern, alone in a town
where the train has long since left the station, alone in a very large
northern country where daylight is seasonal and brief.
The young woman who got off the train was from Quebec, or at least
her family was. What she learns in the tavern was that in the old
days, Quebec sent out living waves of people who settled in distant
hamlets and isolated homes. Here in this tavern in this remote town,
she discovers a cousin who shares her manner of speech, who has hung
the same kinds of pictures on his wall just above the sewing machine,
who sings the same songs.
And she says, “I rediscovered the mysterious flame of fellowship
which had shone for me in the prairie and had made me in part what
I was.”
And this is what I think: When the mysterious flame of fellowship
is found, the desolate, windy, lonely places begin to recede in our
internal landscapes. I don’t mean to overstate the case. I only
want to say that being able to articulate “the way it is”
builds a community of sorts, a community that is available even to
those living alone among strangers. The words resonate, they mitigate,
and they empower the spirit. The people of Quebec understand that,
and so do Unitarian Universalists.
When people are isolated on their religious journeys, they sometimes
find that mysterious flame of fellowship. For Unitarian Universalists,
that flame of fellowship can be the Church of the Larger Fellowship.
Whether we are in the prairie land of Manitoba, the remote hills of
India, alone in the suburbs of Boston or Boise or Bogotá, or
anyplace on the planet where one might welcome company on the journey,
it is good to know that companions are here for the asking.
And then, in the words of Quebequois poet Louis Dantin, we might grow
closer to “a world where each heart would be linked to every
other; where sympathy would circulate like the air and radiate like
sunshine; where all that dwells in the heart would rise to the lips,
freed from the artificial barriers of etiquette; where one might freely
go up to the passerby who seemed to be in pain and say, ‘Are
you suffering?’ Where one could share in other people’s
joy, crying out to the laughing couple ‘Hey there! Here’s
to the lover!’. . . And all this would well up and burst forth
. . . and would be dignified, appropriate, and prescribed.” In
that, my friends, we have our joie, our joy.
Quest November 2002 Contents
Autumn Prayer
by Barbara Pescan, parish minister,
the Unitarian Church of Evanston, Illinois
May the glory of the passing away of autumn
lie about us
fresh gold
for a time.
And when the dark comes, and the cold
may we remember how today we stand in glory,
how we walk in bounty
heaped upon earth’s dark carpet,
how we move knee deep in abundance
flung against night’s winter curtain.
We are thankful for it coming
and for its passing.
Let it be.
This reading is taken from our hymnbook, Singing the Living
Tradition, (Boston: The Unitarian Universalist Association, 1993).
The book is available from the UUA Bookstore and the CLF library.
Quest November 2002 Contents
CLF Seeks Directors, Officers, and Nominating
Committee Member
by Linda Melski, chair, CLF Nominating Committee
The Church of the Larger Fellowship Nominating Committee seeks nominations
of CLF members to fill these positions on the Board of Directors for
the year beginning June 2003:
- four directors for three-year terms
- treasurer for a one-year term
- clerk for a one-year term
Board members set CLF policy and approve the budget. Board Members meet
in Boston twice annually, at General Assembly, and periodically by conference
calls.
CLF also seeks to fill this position on the Nominating Committee: member
for a three-year term
The Nominating Committee nominates new board members and most meetings
are conducted by telephone.
You may nominate yourself or another CLF member for any of these positions.
Please contact the CLF with your nomination.
Quest November 2002 Contents
Grandmother’s House
by Christopher Buice, minister, Tennessee Valley UU Church,
Knoxville, Tennessee
Over the river and through Atlanta traffic to Grand-mother’s
house we’d go. That was our routine during various family holiday
gatherings of my childhood. I remember looking at all the food spread
out on Grandma’s dining room table. There was a large turkey
roasted to a golden brown. There were salads, casseroles, dressing,
freshly baked rolls, and a variety of vegetables to choose from. But
these were of no interest to me. There was only one dish that mattered.
It was served in an elegant, fine china bowl with a ladle to the side.
It was a delicious, piping hot bowl of Spaghettios. I was always excited
to see that Grandma had cooked my favorite dish. She had lovingly
opened the can, poured the contents into a pot, and warmed them to
perfection. And, of course, there was the presentation. I am probably
one of the few people on earth who has been served Spaghettios from
the finest china.
My grandmother was a Southern Baptist. My father, her son, became
an Episcopal priest. I am a Unitarian Universalist minister. (Perhaps
this is the trickle-down theory operating in religion.) Grandma died
before I became a member of a UU church. I am not sure how she would
have reacted. Perhaps she would have felt the same as my aunt, who
once exclaimed to my brother Sam, “Chris is a Unitarian?! I thought
he was at least an Episcopalian.” This was not a diplomatic comment,
con-sidering that Sam is an Episcopal priest.
Would my grandmother be surprised by my choice? Maybe not. Grandma
taught me from earliest childhood that there is room at the table
for someone who is a little bit different from the rest. The memory
of that bowl of Spaghettios continually reminds me to make room in
my heart for people who are a bit odd in their tastes and dispositions.
There can be room in our hearts for diversity. There can be a place
at the table for everyone, even the more finicky children of God.
This reading was taken from the meditation manual, Roller-Skating
as a Spiritual Discipline, (Boston: Skinner House Books, 2002),
available from the UUA Bookstore and the CLF library.
Quest November 2002 Contents
Last updated June 12, 2005
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