CLF | Quest | April 2003

Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple and the simple thing is the right thing.

by Frances Manly, minister, First UU Church of Niagara, Niagara Falls, NY, and CLF member.

There is more than one Easter. As we know it today, Easter is grounded in at least two different realities, two different aspects of the human condition, two different ways of experiencing and understanding the world. We can sum them up in the words "rebirth" and "resurrection." Sometimes, it seems, we use these words almost interchangeably when we talk about Easter, but they're not at all the same; they make very different promises to our spirits and our souls. Over the centuries, some religious traditions have tended to focus more on one, some on the other. One of the great joys of being part of a religious tradition that draws from many sources is that we don't have to choose. We can celebrate both rebirth and resurrection, and we are the richer for it.

Rebirth is the spring side of Easter, the part that goes back beyond recorded history-to fires lit on hilltops to invite the returning sun. We highlight colored eggs and rabbits and baby animals of all kinds to celebrate fertility and new life. Rebirth is the message of the Easter that is grounded in the cycles of the earth and the cycles of our souls.

Earlier this week, on one of those wonderful almost-warm sunny days, I was headed back toward my house after a walk. The sky was a brilliant blue, and the sun felt warm on my back. All around me, however, the grass was brown and dead, the trees were stark black skeletons against the sky, the lawns and gardens were still littered and matted with the last moldy leaves from last fall. And then I thought to check on the crocuses. "Maybe they've started to come up," I thought. I planted those crocuses a long time ago, so long I can't remember when I put them in; it could easily be twenty years ago. They're planted at the foot of what was then a very young tree replacing one of the stately elms that once lined our street. They're not in a garden, just nestled in the grass between the sidewalk and the street. When the crocuses bloom in the spring we enjoy them, but they get no care at all. As soon as they stop blooming, they're on their own to survive as best they can as part of the lawn.

As I walked toward the tree, I was wondering, as I do every year, whether they could have really made it through our total neglect and the cold of winter to bloom again. I would have been delighted to see even the tips of a few tiny green leaves poking up through the brown grass. What I got instead was an abundance of crocuses in full bloom, spreading out at the base of the tree where we'd planted them and marching on down the lawn toward the street all on their own. Spring had come again, to one little corner of the great web. For at least a moment, those two-dozen crocuses were more than flowers. They were a promise, and the fulfillment of a promise.

Where I live, spring is filled with moments like this, one after another, day after day. Easter-this ancient, pagan, very northern version of Easter-is a celebration of all those moments rolled into one. It doesn't matter whether Easter Day is early or late, whether the actual weather is warm and sunny or cold and blustery. The ancient celebration of Easter is not about what is happening at any given moment but about what can happen, what we know does happen, again and again, in its own good time. The warmth of spring follows the cold of winter. New life springs forth from death-like sleep. The life potential in the tiniest seed is ready to burst through to grow into something grand and glorious.

More than this, Easter is about the leaping of our hearts, the rising of our spirits, the burgeoning of our hope when we feel the first warm sun on our faces and see the first yellow-green buds begin to swell. It is the celebration that within us, too, spring can come. Again and again it comes. No matter how low our spirits, no matter how pained our bodies, no matter how cold our hearts, the seeds of hope are always there beneath the ground, awaiting the soul's unpredictable rhythms of rebirth.

Yet, wonderful as this is, and as deeply as it may touch us, rebirth is only part of Easter. "The other part is resurrection, carried in the Christian story of Easter. Rebirth is something that happens again and again in the eternal cycles of the natural world and in the deep cyclical movements within our souls. Resurrection is very different: it is something that happens once, a radical break in the natural order of things, leading-always-to transformation. It is not a waking from sleep but a return from the dead.

Do I need to emphasize that in talking about this story, or any other story, I do not think we have to read it literally? Seriously, but not literally. Easter, for me, is not about whether Jesus of Nazareth literally, physically, rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. We couldn't prove that one way or the other if we wanted to.

What I'm interested in, what moves me, what helps me to understand what it means to be human and gives me strength in the most challenging times is the story. I ask: How does this story happen in me? Who and where am I in this story? What is the promise of this story? What is the danger?

Danger? Did I say danger? Where did that come from? When did Easter get to be a scary holiday? Well, right from the beginning, if we're to believe the gospel of Mark, the earliest of the four gospels. Resurrection is scary stuff. What's dead is supposed to stay dead. As Mark tells the story, three women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, go to the tomb of Jesus to anoint the body, to finish preparing it for burial. But when they arrive, the tomb is open, the stone already rolled away from the door. A young man in a white robe reassures them, telling them that Jesus is no longer there, that he has been raised, and that they will see him again in Galilee. We might expect them to be glad, to rejoice, to run off to tell the other mourners that Jesus is not dead after all. And indeed they do run off, but not in joy. Mark tells us that they "fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid."

Where is this story in me, or in you? Within each of us, at times, there may be something that has died, something sealed away in the tomb of our souls with a great stone rolled across the entrance, though whether to keep the dead inside or to keep life out might be hard to say. It might be hope, or joy, or trust, or love, crucified by great hurt or betrayal or loss or tragedy. Perhaps something very personal, or something in the greater world, has touched -and shriveled-our lives. Something happened in some Good Friday of the soul, and a part of us died. We sealed it away in a tomb, forever, and that seemed the end of the story.

But the story of Easter suggests that there is something that can roll away the stone, and insists that that which has died can come to life again. I was going to say "something within us can roll away the stone," but I don't think that's necessarily the way we experience it. For behind the message of Easter is the proposition that we are not alone, not on our own, that our very being is grounded in a vastness which can hold us through radical change. Call it God, call it Goddess, call it Life, call it Love, call it the Great Web, call it Mystery.

Unlike the rebirth of spring, resurrection is not inevitable. It may happen or it may not. Indeed, we may not even want it to, for there is a kind of safety and a kind of rest in letting the dead stay dead. For traditional Christians the man Jesus of Nazareth died to rise again as the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior. What has died and risen again is transformed, and there is loss in that as well as gain. The promise of the resurrection is not that the stone will be rolled away, but that it can be-if we will but let go of whatever within us is holding it fast in place. The promise of the resurrection is not that what has died within us will come to life again but rather that it can-if we are willing to let go of what once was and embrace whatever transformation comes.

Quest April 2003 Contents

Spring holidays. Images of journeys. The Exodus out of Egypt as Passover nears, Jesus making his Palm Sunday approach, and our own journeys through life. It can feel like the Canterbury Tales, the "Prologue," where in the spring- time you take to your feet and you make the journey, the journey that matters the most.

As soon as April pierces to the root
The drought of March, and bathes each bud and shoot
Through every vein of sap with gentle showers
From whose engendering liquor spring the flowers

...

Life stirs their hearts and tingles in them so,
On pilgrimages people long to go
And palmers to set out for distant strands
And foreign shrines renowned in many lands.

There are times in life ripe for the journey. Sometimes, of course, there is little choice. Refugees run for their lives, carrying heavy toddlers, fleeing to who knows what kind of a life. When the time came for the ancient Hebrews to leave Egypt, they couldn't think twice and wait for the bread to rise, they just went. The journey was no spiritual metaphor for them, it was the harshest of concrete realities.

But for most of us the journey, the pilgrimage, can be a choice. We have that luxury. Like the pilgrims headed to Canterbury, we can take the summer camping trip to that special place where we feel our spirits restored. We can walk to our favorite personal sacred spot in the town forest; we can search out, many of us, the places where our grandmothers were born or where the sunsets are so spectacular or where the early bulbs come up, and feel a new sense of grounding.

Or maybe the journey is purely metaphorical: a spiritual journey of self-awareness or of healing after a difficult childhood or troublesome relationship. Perhaps the journey takes the form of an escape from a job that confined the spirit or leaving behind a life that did not reflect who you were at all. Maybe it involves a foray into a new field of expertise, new classes, new skills. You might create an intentional family of nurturing friends or you might find your way to a new sense of peace and service and satisfaction. First the escape, then the journey.

This escape from bondage to freedom is, of course, the story told in the story of Passover.

For 400 years the ancient Hebrews were enslaved in Egypt. Moses was told by God in the form of a burning bush to lead his people out of Egypt. Moses paid Pharaoh a little visit, commanding, "Let my people go." Pharaoh didn't take kindly to the idea.

So God sent plagues: frogs and locusts and all the rest, and finally, the horrific killing of the Egyptian firstborn babies, while the Hebrew babies were passed over. At this point Pharaoh finally set the Israelites free, and they fled in haste, before he changed his mind.

But of course he did change his mind, and his troops chased the Israelites in chariots and on horses, and when the Israelites were tempted to give in, Moses parted the Red Sea, and the Israelites walked to freedom.

This year what has taken hold of me about Passover is not so much the story itself, but the very fact that the story is reliably told and retold, generation after generation at the family Seder. The story is a fundamental part of the language of a people. It provides the basis for religious identity, and helps to preserve the community, sustaining an enduring culture and tradition.

The whole story is about freedom, but what I'm thinking about just now is how over the centuries the Jews maintain their journey toward freedom as a group with definite boundaries, a religious group, and they continue doing that in spite of enormous odds against them. We read of Jewish soldiers in the U.S. Civil War, who on Passover managed to hold a Seder, substituting bricks for the mixture of apples and nuts that are customary, and a wild weed for the bitter herb. In the Warsaw ghetto during World War II, Jews conducted Seders from memory. Even in the concentration camps Jewish prisoners were reluctant to eat leavened bread during Passover.

I don't know whether any of us has experienced this kind of deprivation or this kind of longing for the practices of our people. But we can probably understand the feeling of wanting a recognizable anchor when we're feeling adrift in our own small ways. A colleague of mine, Emily Gage, tells about being in Poland in the Peace Corps when she heard that a McDonald's was opening in Warsaw:

Way back in October I said that this year I'd like to explore three broad areas of religious education with you: wisdom from the world's religions, our Jewish and Christian heritage, and Unitarian Universalism. You may recall that I began with Unitarian Universalism, and in the February and March issues of Quest, I continued with our Christian heritage. This month, we'll take on world religions.

The first question we might want to ask is simply this: as Unitarian Universalists, why should we spend much time on religions different from our own? My answer comes in the form of a story.

The Visit of the Master

with apologies to Ray Bradbury and Stanislaw Lem

Once upon a time in the far distant future, a group of people got together and decided to build a huge spaceship to visit all the distant planets in the backwaters of the Galaxy. One day, this spaceship popped out of hyperspace into a sector of the galaxy that hadn't been visited in more than a century. They landed on the nearest planet at the only spaceport, which was deserted, with weeds growing up through cracks in the pavement.

The leaders of the little group of explorers, Hermeticon and Theotechne, walked from the spaceport to the nearest town. When they got there they heard, to their surprise, that someone else had recently visited the planet, and in fact had only left a day ago. They asked about this mysterious person, but no one could say much of anything except that they called this person the Master, and that she had been a person of peace and infinite wisdom. And they seemed to think that she had given them a message of great importance.

"Well, what was the message?" asked Hermeticon.

But no one could say, except that the message was vital.

In frustration, Theotechne cried out, "What? None of you can remember anything of what this great and peaceful woman said? None of you can remember anything of the infinite wisdom that this Master shared with you?"

A small child stepped forward and spoke: "I can remember one thing. The Master said, 'We work.'"

An older child stepped forward and said, "But the Master also said 'Together.'"

An adult in middle age volunteered: "I remember that she said something so poignant that I can never forget it. The Master said, 'Can we find?'"

A young adult, perhaps in her early twenties, came forward next, and said confidently, "The Master said, 'In cooperation.'"

And a teenager walked up, and simply said, "All."

Then two parents stepped forward, holding their baby, and they said, "Our baby keeps saying something in baby talk, and it reminds us that the Master said 'Only if...only if.'"

Finally a distinguished-looking older adult walked up and said, "What the Master said was this: 'Truth.'"

Hermeticon noticed when all these people were lined up from youngest to oldest, each of the phrases they remembered became a part of a longer sentence:

"Only if we work together, all in cooperation, can we find truth."

That's the story. Even though I made it up, I realize that I'm not entirely sure what it means. I think the message is that none of us has the complete answer to anything. Even beyond that, no group, or movement, or religion has the single definitive viewpoint (not even Unitarian Universalism!).

If we are going to be sincere in our search for truth, we have to open ourselves to the insights of other religious traditions. This does not mean that we should (or can) adopt other religions or religious practices. Nor does it mean that we have to approach other religions uncritically. In fact, I would suggest that religious education should balance appreciation and critique. However, by sharing stories and insights from other religions with young people, we can deepen their appreciation for other cultures and for people with other viewpoints. Not only will this make them better world citizens, it will help them broaden their search for truth. And that, after all, is what our fourth principle is all about.

George McCullough remembers his first UUA General Assembly vividly. He and fifteen others from his Canton, Ohio, UU fellowship went to Cleveland in 1961 and "That's when I found out we can fight… but I don't think we hate." It was only later that he realized the uniqueness of that first post-consolidation GA.

As an African-American, he has experienced welcome and rejection in his work life and his religious life in his ninety years, but concentrates on making the best of it. "I was born in a little town-Thomasville, Georgia-and grew up in the South when it was bad," he said. "I grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida." He had to leave Florida abruptly, after he defended himself from a racist attack while chauffeuring his boss' mother through a small town.

Landing in Canton, Ohio, he found employment in the General Labor department of the Hoover Corporation. "I met up with prejudices when I first worked there. But it turned out to be a great place to work." Quickly promoted from janitorial duties to working machines like the French press, he made some of his best friends while at Hoover.

One of his fondest memories from that time was his relationship with the head of Human Resources: "He'd sit me down and tell me what to expect, and if I had questions he told me to come to him, and I did." To his surprise, when he first attended the UU fellowship, that same man turned out to be president. While some members made him feel less than welcome, he recalls, "That man and his wife went all out making me feel like I was somebody in the fellowship."

The fellowship lasted for five years, but when it had to close due to lack of membership, McCullough was very happy to find the Church of the Larger Fellowship. He first joined when George Marshall was the minister, and he retains strong affection for Scott Alexander, with whom he kept in touch. He feels that the CLF meets his needs and helps him feel connected to the UU world now that he is not as mobile as he once was.

A World War II veteran, he relates current events to his experience. On returning home after three years in Burma and India, he recalls, "It changed me a whole lot, getting away from the good things in America. We found out we weren't as holy as we thought we were." Conflicted about the Middle East situation, he admits, "I can't work it out. I believe we need to protect ourselves, but on the other hand, I don't want to go through that again. I've got grandchildren. I have a great-grandson that's two years old. How long would it be before he'd be involved?"

A gentle man, he cannot understand violence, though his long life has made him realistic about the world. "It seems like we can't live in this world without fighting. People don't realize what they do to each other. And for no good reason!" He chuckles, "I hope the next world is a little better than this one."

Don't forget to send your postcard and/or photograph to the CLF office for our member wall at GA in Boston!

"Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty."-Wendell Phillips (1811-1884)

These famous words by the abolitionist Wendell Phillips sound a clarion call to many Unitarian Universalists today. Regardless of how we feel about the current political situation, the foundation of our movement's principles rests firmly on a belief in the importance of the freedoms of speech, religion, assembly and privacy, the rights to counsel and due process under the law, and protection from unreasonable searches and seizures. These freedoms have been circumscribed by the US Patriot Act, passed in the wake of 9/11. Many argue that more civil rights are threatened by the creation of a Homeland Security Department and the broader license granted to the FBI since 9/11.

At our upcoming General Assembly in June, delegates will be discussing the status of the Study/Action issue on civil liberties, passed last year at the Quebec GA. Civil liberties may sound like a purely domestic issue, but the "war on terrorism" is being used to justify limiting the civil liberties and the human rights of people within and without the United States.

Unitarian Universalists can be proud of having been involved in the protection of civil and human rights. A recent forum in Boston, Massachusetts highlighted our history of being not only involved, but "Ahead of the Wave," as the November 17, 2002, celebration was entitled. At that forum UUA President Bill Sinkford reminded the audience that our record was not perfect: Unitarians in particular lagged behind in the call for abolition of slavery, for instance. On the whole, though, UUs have much to be proud of: women's suffrage, civil rights, and the founding of the Civil Liberties Union among them. Most recently, he said, UU minister Tom Goldsmith defended and won the freedom to speak publicly in Salt Lake City, Utah. Sinkford proclaimed that such an action in protecting civil rights "might be the latest chapter but it will not be the last!"

Also celebrated at that forum were the courageous acts of UUs during the Vietnam War era: Gobin Stair, then director of the Beacon Press, recounted proudly publishing The Pentagon Papers in spite of intimidation and, afterwards, harassment by the IRS. Ellery Schempp, UU protester of public prayer as a high school student in 1963, fought and won the right to privacy and freedom of religion. He stated his belief that "the Constitution does not guarantee majority rule; rather, it guarantees that minorities are protected." Recent court battles over the place of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance prove Wendell Phillips' point-that we may have to fight our battles over and over again.

Domestically and internationally, one issue, one person, one principle at a time, our faith calls on us to be what the Rev. Bill Schulz calls "the trimtab factor." Schulz, past president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, is currently the executive director of Amnesty International. In an address titled "'I Never Want to Speak English Again:' Human Rights in a Post-9/11 World," delivered at a Massachusetts Bay District chapter meeting last fall, he stated, "Justice begins with a minority." Schulz went on to describe the trimtab, a small but crucial part of the rudder of a boat. It's the piece that directs the rudder, determining where the boat will go. Remembering how a small percentage of Americans eventually forced the government to change its Vietnam policy, he declared that UUs have been the trimtab factor in the area of human rights:

Former ministerial interns Kathy Reis, now Rev. Reis, and Amber Beland, have compiled two sets of worship services for the CLF Library's Month of Sundays collection. In one Month of Sundays binder small groups will find four complete worship services, from opening words to final benediction. For those who enjoy a talkback session, there is a bonus: each worship ends with several discussion questions.

The seasons are featured in the Reis collections: organized by month, sermons and children's stories for September through December deal with themes relevant to the joys and concerns raised during those months. Again, each binder offers related children's stories, hymns, and readings. Thoughtful opening and closing words written by Rev. Reis complete the services.

Ms. Beland compiled the January Month of Sundays collection, continuing the seasonal theme. Another Month of Sundays notebook entitled World Religion includes sermons on Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and Taoism. For the children, there are two related stories and two plays: one tells the story of the Buddha and the other an episode from Mohammed's life. Ms. Beland also includes openings and closings for these services.

If you are interested in borrowing any of these collections, please contact Giovanna Spadaro, our assistant administrator in charge of the library. She may be reached by mail, by phone (617-948-6150, Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays until 4:00 pm EST) or by e-mail at gspadaro@uua.org.

CLF Unsung UU Award

The Unsung Unitarian Universalist Award honors those UUs whose actions inspire support and express our religion, but who are not generally recognized. In response to a member's suggestion, the CLF Board would like to institute this award within the CLF. And because the Board doesn't want to waste a minute, it will make its first decision at about the time you're reading this and approve a nominations process for the future. So... watch for news of the 2003 award at General Assembly time, and start gathering your nominations for GA 2004!

NEW online RE curriculum

Dan Harper has developed a new home-based RE curriculum for CLF families with lesson plans, timetables and lots of resources. Watch for the May issue of Quest for more information or take a look at the CLF website: http://www.uua.org/clf/re_curriculum.html

Did You Know that the CLF if offering seven new designs of UU-themed order of service covers? Go to www.clfuu.org/covers or call the office for a full-color flyer (617) 948-6166.

Quest April 2003 Contents

May the warm sun
Shine upon you.

May the brightness of the green grass
Fill you with exultation.

May the sweet perfume of the spring flowers
Scent the place where you stand.

May the songs of the birds
Bring music to your soul.

And love
Fresh and bright
Renew your life.

by Roland E. Morin, (1914-1984) former minister, First Congregational Society, Unitarian of Chelmsford, MA