by Amanda Aikman, minister, Northlake Unitarian Universalist Church, Kirkland, WA
Are we becoming a nation of cat-vacuumers?
I raise this pressing question remembering Betty, my...unusual neighbor in Virginia.
Betty had a rambling three-story house filled with knick-knacks. She had a gentle husband, Jay, who mostly stayed out of her way, tending his roses. And she had a cat.
Betty also had some sort of compulsion that made it impossible for her to leave the house in the morning without first dusting or vacuuming every single item in it.
And this included Reuben, the cat. He was a slim, black little fellow whose elegance of gait and demeanor did not betray his humble origins: as a tiny kitten, he had been rescued from a dumpster by Jay, who brought him home in a coat pocket.
That cat knew he had been rescued from a dumpster. He knew that there was an alternate reality out there, outside Betty and Jay's house—a harsh reality where there were bad smells, and hunger, and other cats, and noises even louder than the whine of a vacuum cleaner.
And so every morning, with a martyred expression on his furry face not unlike that of Saint Sebastian while he is being shot full of arrows in Guido Reni's famous painting, Reuben would lie on his back on the carpet and submit to being vacuumed.
Betty performed this deed with the Hoover 's upholstery crevice tool. She was determined to get every last scrap of fur and dander. Jay would sometimes come by while Betty was engaged in this task. He'd put his hands on his hips and say over the noise of the vacuum, "Now, Betty, why do you have to vacuum that poor cat?" Betty didn't know. She just kept vacuuming. She had to do it before she could feel free to leave the house.
She'd finish up with the tip of Reuben's slender black tail, and then he would scamper off and lick himself a little, and manage to look dignified again surprisingly quickly.
Brothers and sisters, is there something in your life that is the equivalent of cat-vacuuming? Some ritual procedure you feel compelled to do; something you do routinely, even though it drains your time and energy, even though it makes very little sense; something to which you have bound yourself, and from which there is no rest?
In fact, does it sometimes feel as if your entire life is like this—an endless round of activities: of work, and frantic consumption, and leisure pursuits that feel suspiciously like work? Is true, healing rest something you are vaguely planning to enjoy...one day? Can you, in fact, even remember the last time you were truly, totally relaxed? Was it days ago? Months?
In an article entitled "Bring Back the Sabbath" in the New York Times Magazine, Judith Shulevitz notes that in the early years of the twentieth century, Sandor Ferenczi, a disciple of Sigmund Freud, noticed a phenomenon that he called Sunday neurosis: normally healthy people would experience mental and physical distress on the Sabbath. Ferenczi theorized that these patients, when deprived of their normal busy routine by the advent of the Sabbath, feared that their usual self-censoring mechanisms would prove inadequate to keep their impulses repressed. They felt out of control—and developed pain or mental anguish to drown out their anxiety. A hundred years later, we have eliminated the blue laws which kept Sundays holy—or which at least restricted the range of things you could do on a Sunday. Now we can work, shop, and engage in all kinds of organized recreation, twenty-four/seven. We don't suffer from Sunday neurosis—most of us never sit still long enough to experience it.
Because Americans—and perhaps many others in the industrialized world—turn even leisure into work, true rest eludes us. Some years back, when sensory deprivation tanks were in vogue, I "floated" a few times as an aid to meditation. I loved the dark tank: the skin-temperature water so saturated with minerals that it felt oily, the effortless floating sensation, the physical and mental refreshment it brought.
I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that some floaters turned even that deliciously empty time into an opportunity for productive self-improvement. Once, as I was emerging from the tank, I noticed a small screen on its inside lid. On my way out of the building, I asked a staff person what the screen was for. "Oh," she said, "Some people study videos about how to improve their golf swing or their skiing technique while they're floating."
The Sabbath comes to us from the Jewish tradition. Observant Jews refrain from doing any kind of work for one entire day every week. But, by and large, we don't stop to rest. We don't stop to consider ourselves and our place in the universe. As Judith Shulevitz says, "The Sabbath, the one day in seven dedicated to rest by divine command, has become the holiday Americans are most likely never to take." Because we do not stop, we contribute to the culture of violence that permeates our whole world. The Chinese pictograph for "busy" is comprised of two characters: heart and killing.
We can do something small but vitally important to bring life back to our hearts and to our world. We can stop. We can rest. We can observe a Sabbath.
It is extraordinarily difficult to take a real Sabbath. It is extraordinarily difficult to shut out the myriad voices, both inner and outer, that berate us for lazily sitting still when we could be earning money, improving ourselves or society, or—our real patriotic duty—shopping. It is difficult. But it can be done.
Oddly, it takes discipline and very strong intentions to rest and relax. I imagine that it would have been very hard for Betty to go for even one day without vacuuming the cat. It might have been easier, however, if throughout her neighborhood it was a well-established practice to observe "No Cat-Vacuuming Day," when anyone naughty enough to vacuum their cat on that day would be scolded or put in the stocks, as were the Puritans when they violated the Sabbath. That social pressure might have given Betty the excuse she needed to abstain from vacuuming the cat for at least one day.
Longingly, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, in his poem "Peace":
When will you ever, Peace, wild wood-dove, shy wings shut, Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?
Most of us find that peace does not just come and alight under our boughs. If we are relentlessly and unceasingly busy we can't even recognize peace. Peace might come and start cooing around our tree, and we might be so unaccustomed to it that we mistake it for boredom or depression. How can we hope to create peace in the world when we don't experience it in our own bodies, our own souls?
We need to set aside a special time and space, and keep it sacred. We need to clear out the underbrush, make a cozy space under the tree, and sit there quietly. Then peace can gently come and roost, nestling into that time and space, nurturing us, giving us joy and a sense of reconnection with the holy.
That is why the Sabbath was created: to build that nest for peace to settle into. Observant Jews light candles on Friday evening to welcome the Sabbath. Observant Christians may start Sunday with prayer or quiet Bible study. But many others, too, have learned how to usher Sabbath into their own lives.
Sharing a meal, simple or complex, with loved ones, or preparing a beautiful meal for oneself, is one popular Sabbath activity. Attention is paid to the enjoyment of the preparation, the food, and the company. In Wayne Muller's book Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest the author speaks of one woman who regularly invites friends over to cook with her. She says, "It becomes almost sacred, sacramental, the way food and hands and friendship all work together in the warmth of the kitchen."
Walking in nature is one of the most common Sabbath practices. My partner and I spent last Thanksgiving at a lodge on the Olympic Peninsula and went for a long hike on Friday morning. As we set out, we agreed to walk in silence for the first hour. I took a brief detour off the trail, and when I returned to it, Nancy was signaling to me urgently, with a big smile on her face. There, just off the trail, was a doe, staring calmly at us. We stood in silent communion for a long minute, the two humans and the wild creature, before the doe melted away into the underbrush. If we'd been talking she never would have lingered, and we would have missed that transcendent moment.
Simple play is another Sabbath practice. I remember a man I met in Portland who had a vast coffee table in his living room with hundreds of small wooden blocks on it. Visitors could build whatever they liked, and it was covered with fanciful constructions, the ephemeral offerings of the host's friends.
Other popular Sabbath activities include making love, reading, napping, praying, talking with loved ones. The Sabbath does not, of course, have to be restricted to one day a week. Ideally, there should be moments of Sabbath in every day—moments of blessing and hallowing the world. Muller refers to Kalu Rinpoche, a Tibetan spiritual leader, who visited an aquarium and kept stopping to put his fingers to the glass of each tank, quietly blessing every fish as he walked. May you be happy. May you be at peace.
Observing the Sabbath, observing a day of mindfulness, taking a real day off, does not require anything extra of us. It does call for the intentional creation of sacred space and time, and that can be achieved with a little discipline. It also calls for us to overcome our fear of what we will find in the silence and the emptiness, our fear of what disaster will strike if the cat remains un-vacuumed. Only by practicing Sabbath as we practice any new skill will we gain confidence and befriend peacefulness.
The most challenging thing about Sabbath is that it is useless. Nothing will get done. Our work is necessary. But Sabbath time offers the priceless gift of balance. We are valued not for what we have achieved, but simply because we exist. During Sabbath time we reconnect with what is truly valuable: the beauty of the world, the love of the divine, the miracle of being itself.
In her poem "Will," Jewish poet Marcia Falk writes:
Three generations back my family had only to light a candle and the world parted. Today, Friday afternoon, I disconnect clocks and phone. When night fills my house with passages, I begin saving my life.
Let us be gently intentional about creating Sabbath for ourselves and our families; let us begin saving our lives; let us reduce, by even a tiny measure, the level of anxiety and violence in our world.
Sabbath is waiting quietly for us, a haven of calm, a nest of gentleness, a sweet apple on the tree of peace. Let us reach up toward it and taste it for ourselves.
by Jane Rzepka, senior minister, Church of the Larger Fellowship
I never saw the piano or the truck. Just the cliff.
George and Evelyn Frey built a guest lodge in the canyon in 1925. It's hard to imagine why they chose a spot on the floor of Frijoles Canyon, given that the only way down is a steep and narrow trail a mile and a half down from the canyon rim. Hardly a tourist thoroughfare.
As if the challenge of the remote location weren't enough, evidently running a guest lodge in the 1920s required (at least in the minds and hearts of George and Evelyn) a piano and a truck. So piece by piece they hauled a Dodge pickup down the little trail, and similarly, a piano.
George and Evelyn Frey, late of Bandelier, New Mexico, lived lives of industrious folly, human ambition, splendid success. That was their recipe for living life. What's yours?
Most of us think we know what life is—I know I do. It's what Garrison Keillor says it is: "tying shoe laces, flipping pancakes, starting cars, putting on your jacket now that it's getting to be the end of September." It's being born, and playing with LEGOs, watching cartoons on TV, doing algebra, eating fries, buying that first sofa, earning a paycheck, retiring in hopes of a little travel or peace and quiet—that's how it goes, doesn't it? Isn't that the recipe for living life, more or less?
No. That can't be it. A robot could do that stuff. There's got to be more to life, more to being human.
I checked out some resources, some guidelines for living life. One little book from the 1880s, entitled Don't: A Manual of Mistakes & Improprieties More or Less Prevalent in Conduct and Speech, keeps it pretty simple—just a few rules and you'll be human, or at least civilized, which at the time was about as good as it got. For example, "Don't use meaningless exclamations, such as ‘Oh crackey!'" "Don't say gents for gentlemen, nor pants for pantaloons. These are inexcusable vulgarisms." "Don't sneer at people, or continually crack jokes at their expense." "Don't play the accordion, the violin, the piano, or any musical instrument, to excess. Your neighbors have nerves."
Follow those guidelines, and bingo, you're a splendid example of living life right.
After that little foray, I abandoned the research route, and simply got to thinking: what is it that we are looking for, beyond the neatly tied shoelaces and the retirement plan? Beyond driving the kids from basketball to bowling. Beyond what's for lunch?
One can imagine several answers—we want love, maybe, or security, or reliable good health. Maybe we long for the feeling of connection to a healthy family, or to a couple of close friends, or a wide and caring community. We may want to know the experience of getting up in the morning to a brand new day that looks like it's going to be fun, or we want to feel a sense of well-being deep inside, and self-respect, and satisfaction for a job well done and a life well-lived. We want to know that we've done our bit for social justice, paused to take in the quiet and the grandeur, that we've been alive, and good for something and grateful; that at the end of the day we will, as they say, have lived a good life.
Those are the kinds of things that when we've got them, we know we're not robots. It's the kind of list that, when taken all together, means a person is spiritual—that is to say, fully human.
I like to believe that most anybody who's in possession of the basics of food, shelter, and freedom can invent a satisfying recipe for life. A spiritual strategy. That's what Unitarian Universalists do, after all: we ponder, we observe, we notice our inner inclinations and rational strategies and measure them against the realities of the world. We experiment, take a few fliers, examine the ethics, connect with whatever gives us meaning. And we live our lives.
It would be convenient, I know, if ministers handed out the recipes for living full and satisfying lives once and for all. We don't, of course, but I can offer a couple of possible ingredients by way of example, which might just cook up a hearty, satisfying life. My recipe would include:
Know what your heaven looks like.
"I once met in the Yukon an elderly Sekani man" says the travel writer Wade Davis, "who was completely confounded by a missionary's notion of heaven. He couldn't believe anyone could be expected to give up smoking, drinking, swearing, carousing, and all the things that made life worth living in order to go to a place where they didn't allow animals. ‘No caribou?' he would say in complete astonishment." He knew what heaven should look like.
I have begun to notice that people who know what heaven looks like are on to something. I watch for it now.
So in Montreal, on a day when it was 38 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, in an drafty, unfinished warehouse loft in the old town—a very cool loft in every sense of the word—this is what I notice: a royal blue Hawaiian lap steel guitar, hockey skates, chop sticks, a huge pink piñata, two turntables for spinning, Vietnamese sauce de poisson, a tall and rickety wooden ladder, a Hydro Quebec bill, a lot of drums (African and Irish), hoisin sauce, cans of house paint, books—Virgil, The Cat in the Hat, Spanish verbs, a Guide to Videos, a book in Russian—and a washboard. At least these are the things that first catch my eye.
I look out the window, and people zip about out there in the cold, bundled up, way beyond fretting about hat-head or a sleek silhouette. Restaurants and bars are packed. Friends gather everywhere. The city feels alive, born of a sure knowledge that this place, these frigid streets, the sauce de poisson and Hydro Quebec, all add up to a kind of heaven. Even without the caribou.
When we want to know how best to live, I think it helps to know what heaven could look like. Maybe it has something to do with teaching four-year-olds in the local shelter what a platypus looks like; or seeing great Chinese vases; or getting back in touch with the old neighbors, or the spiritual practice, or the folks at AA. Kicking up your heels at a very loud party or a big family dinner, a solo hike to a place with a view, or baking those delicious, to-die-for éclairs again. When thinking about how to live life, a picture of heaven can be a part of the recipe.
Among the gazillions of other spiritual strategies, I would mention one more:
When the plan changes, relax.
I love the author Calvin Trillin, and in his book Family Man he describes a scene where he is seated next to a friend's eleven year old, Molly, at brunch at a café, when somebody says that the chef has "a great touch with omelets."
Molly made the sort of face I became familiar with when our own children were around her age and someone at the dinner table carried on about some blissful experience with a wild mushroom or a raw oyster. Why did Molly grimace at the thought of eating eggs? Because several years before, she'd seen the most famous and widely praised drug commercial in the anti-drug campaign. The commercial opens with a shot of a raw egg, while a voice says, ‘"This is your brain." The egg is then dumped onto a sizzling griddle while the voice says, "This is your brain on drugs." The commercial may well have put a number of teen-agers off drugs. It put at least one six-year-old in New Jersey off eggs.
Molly made the sort of face I became familiar with when our own children were around her age and someone at the dinner table carried on about some blissful experience with a wild mushroom or a raw oyster.
Why did Molly grimace at the thought of eating eggs? Because several years before, she'd seen the most famous and widely praised drug commercial in the anti-drug campaign. The commercial opens with a shot of a raw egg, while a voice says, ‘"This is your brain." The egg is then dumped onto a sizzling griddle while the voice says, "This is your brain on drugs." The commercial may well have put a number of teen-agers off drugs. It put at least one six-year-old in New Jersey off eggs.
Trillin calls this "the doctrine of unintended consequences."
It may be an odd idea, but I believe that fully human, spiritual people understand and accept this doctrine. There is a serenity that comes from realizing that the best laid plans can just as easily result in an eleven-year-old who won't eat eggs. It seems to me that healthy people find a way of accepting the "good try," the "best shot."
You insisted on music lessons for your child—you pictured her accompanying the church choir—but your child turns around and becomes an orange-haired body-pierced aspiring rock star in Las Vegas. All because of those music lessons—that's not what you meant to do! You pictured yourself living in L.A. by now, what with your college major in film, but your niche turned out to be cable TV sales, and you live in Minneapolis, where it snows. That wasn't exactly the intention. You went for couples' counseling to strengthen your relationship, only to conclude that really, the two of you have always been poorly suited. The doctrine of unintended consequences.
Looking around, I notice that people who feel content about their lives are people who relax in the face of the changed plan, who keep a sense of humor about life's absurdities—even the cruel tricks—and get on with life.
Living life. Whether it's dealing gracefully with the unintended consequence, moving a little closer to heaven, or using other guidelines and metaphors entirely, as Unitarian Universalists we're free to choose a life. Not just free, I might add, but obliged. There's no doubt about it: in the midst of tying shoe laces, flipping pancakes, starting cars, and putting on our jackets, we create our lives. We can do it intentionally and well.
Out there in New Mexico, George and Evelyn Frey knew what it took: a piano and a pick-up truck and a whole lot of trips along a very steep trail. Maybe it seemed crazy. But it was life as they wanted to live it, it connected them to what they knew to be fundamental, and they made a lot of people happy along the way. May we choose as well.
Reggae, classical, rock, jazz, hip-hop, folk—no matter the style, the place or the century, music has lifted the spirit and filled the heart. Write us a note at clf@cluu.org and tell us about a song that brings you joy or gives your spirit a boost. What is it about this song that has a special magic ? Where did you first hear the song? We'll share some of your answers in a future Quest.
by Jane Ellen Mauldin, community minister, Covington, Louisiana
My daughter is not learning to swim. At least, not as fast as I would like her to learn. Liz has been taking swimming lessons for the past two summers and all she can do is paddle a few feet across the pool.
My daughter isn't afraid of the water. She splashes and kicks with abandon, regularly pestering any available parent to swim with her in our backyard pool. You see, Liz doesn't want to learn to swim. She isn't ready to take her feet off the bottom of the shallow end and trust her body to the strength of her arms and legs.
The problem for me is that I want Liz to be safe and independent in the pool.
The problem for Liz is quite different: she doesn't want to swim, but she does want to follow her big brother and friends into the deep end, to have full range of the entire pool. And an inflatable ring or kickboard is bulky and limits her ability to use her arms to play. There have been no easy answers for Liz.
Until now. I stopped at a yard sale a couple of weeks ago and picked up a child's life jacket in good, but used, condition. Liz immediately claimed it for her own. Now when she enters the pool she tentatively splashes by herself for a few minutes, then pulls on the jacket and joy streams across her face. She feels free and safe with the life jacket on, and I finally have relented to her request to wear it often.
I want Liz to grow, to become independent and self-reliant. She isn't ready yet. For me, that life jacket represents her need to hang on, if only for a few days or weeks—or even a summer—to her childhood.
Many of us have life jackets: people, beliefs, prayers, or habits that support us through the difficult moments of life. They remind us, when we wear them, that in the Great Swimming Pool of Life, we need the buoyancy provided by a larger spirit, a larger purpose, a larger humanity.
Sometimes, when addiction or destruction is the fabric of our life jackets, we really need to remove them. However, when our life jackets are woven of love, they can be true lifesavers.
There was a time in my life when absolute self-reliance appeared the most honest, dependable route to take. Now I trust myself to my husband's love. I trust myself to the trees outside my window, and the air I breathe, and the god-spirit-holiness-interconnectedness of the universe. I trust that I am not alone, even in my most desolate moments.
I continue to encourage Liz to let go and swim. But only she will know the right time. When she does, I believe she will find that an even greater life jacket—the strength of the universe, which runs through her veins—will not let her down. Liz will learn to trust and swim. So, I pray, shall we all.
From Singing in the Night: Collected Meditations, Volume Five, Skinner House, Boston, 2005, available at the UUA Bookstore (1-800-215-9076) or in the CLF Library.
by Linda Berez, ministerial intern, Church of the Larger Fellowship
"Dear Church of the Larger Fellowship, I am a member, yet I have never written." Thus begins a recent letter from a woman named Cindy Salgado. She continues by telling us how she joined the Church of the Larger Fellowship in 2002 after having to leave her beloved home and church in Ithaca, New York, and move back to San Juan, Puerto Rico, taking only what she could carry, her very young daughter and her cat.
Her primary connections to Unitarian Universalism for the next two years would be through the UU World magazine and the CLF's worship publication, Quest. She did join a CLF electronic community and attempted, but failed, to keep up her own commitment to log on at least once a week.
After two years of clinging memories and religious isolation, she received an e-mail message from someone she met on a CLF e-mail list. It was a miracle, she says, and felt like a hallucination. Here was someone who identified as a UU in Puerto Rico, inviting Cindy for a social gathering and worship service.
Well, she didn't make it to the social event, but she did go to the service and says "I've been humming "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" ever since!" Although it is only a small group of about 10 people, Cindy says here were real flesh and blood UUs in a community that was open, warm and welcoming to her, a complete stranger, and she knew that she wasn't going to have to "check her religious background at the door."
Within six months she was leading worship and began translating services from English to Spanish. She was chosen as the ambassador by her fellow Puerto Ricans to attend the first Latin American Unitarian Universalist Leadership Training Conference in Argentina, sponsored and organized by the International Council of Unitarian Universalists. For Cindy it was like a dream, and at times she wanted to pinch herself just to make sure it was real. She says, "me, former religious orphan, now UU lay leader?"
She concludes her letter this way:
"I am brimming with joy, gratitude, and a profound sense of the sacredness of life…. I want to share my joy, and express my gratitude to the UU congregation that kept me afloat, and then with a simple exchange of information made it possible for me to spiritually flourish: the Church of the Larger Fellowship."
by Calvin Dame, minister, Unitarian Universalist Community Church, Augusta, Maine
Maybe I let it get away from me a little bit. But, you know, once you get started on something it can take on a life of its own.
Each summer since we moved to Maine I have painted one side of our house. The sides are pretty big, and with the shutters and all it pretty well takes what time I have to spend on home improvements. This year I was on the homestretch, side four….
Before I could start scraping and painting this year my wife suggested I build the tree house for my children that I had promised. "The house," she pointed out, "is real old, but the kids will only be young once." And I had scrounged a big pile of discarded plywood allegedly for this purpose.
Grumbling to myself, I agreed. Alyson (8) and Jon (6) and I (41) constructed a platform. Most days the children's interest in handing me tools and climbing up and down the ladder flagged early, but in no time I was putting up the framing, some 4x4s left from another project.
Putting plywood on the roof and sides didn't take that long, and hanging the windows I found in the basement went pretty well, considering. I used the chain saw to drop some maples that needed thinning and put up railings. Somehow, everything takes more time than you think it will.
A rainstorm leaked right through the roof, reminding me that I really had to get something up there. Fortunately, the neighbors who were the source for the plywood had a huge pile of wood they wanted hauled away, including enough cedar shingles for the job. I thought I should get it all, just in case, and I moved the pile down back. This took three days because there was a lot of wood, and their trailer, which I was using, is old, and collapsed, so I had to rebuild some of the body. It didn't take that long.
Once the roof was neatly shingled I realized that the front part would also look good shingled. To my surprise, my wife agreed, so I put up a scaffold and Jon and Alyson and I nailed them up in no time.
I built a door (which isn't that hard and doesn't take that long, really) and then my wife suggested that a Dutch door, opening half way up, would look pretty good, so it only took a little longer to reconstruct the door in two pieces and hang it that way. It does look good, and the kids like it.
I built a desk, which will fold down for storage for when the kids want to sleep out in the tree house. Actually, it will fold up when I figure out a good way to prop it. Presently, it just hangs down.
Now all the tree house needs is a second desk, a shelf, some stools, hardware, a ladder and shingles on another side or two. But I have run out of summer and I haven't gotten much done.
I am still struggling to find a perspective on this. The rear of the house sorely needs paint, the apple trees need pruning, the hedge needs attention, a dozen other projects live undone. But my children and their friends are delighted and amazed and I have been happy all summer long.
Someday they will grow up and leave home, leave tree houses behind. But they will always have the summer we built a tree house together.
by Carol Orts, member CLF nominating committee, Wernersville, Pennsylvania
The CLF is delighted to congratulate Nelson and Caroline Simonson, recipients of this year's CLF Unsung Hero Award.
Nelson and Caroline Simonson discovered Unitarian Universalism in the 1950s through an ad in the New York Times. They joined the Church of the Larger Fellowship about 50 years ago! As they made career moves they also became extremely active in UU churches in Newport, Rhode Island ; Arlington, Virginia ; and, at present, Reading, Pennsylvania. They have been faithful attendees of the General Assembly, and are active in the Universalist Conventions.
Through the years they have also remained loyal supporters of the CLF. Caroline served on the CLF Board of Trustees for six years, part of that time as board chair. In those years of CLF weekend board meetings, Nelson cheerfully led the support team of partners in social arrangements, set up and clean up, and wherever else he was needed. In her years of board service, Caroline experienced many changes in CLF structure and delivery of services, from the installation of the "800" number to the very beginnings of our current world of e-mail and Web pages.
Behind the scenes, Caroline and Nelson have performed a generous, useful service that most of us in the CLF may not be aware of: for over 15 years Caroline and Nelson have been recording each issue of the CLF's publication, Quest, on cassette tape. Every month they alternate reading every sermon, column and poem. The master cassette is then copied at the CLF office and mailed to all visually impaired CLF members who request it. The Simonsons give this yeoman service on behalf of us all.
With deep appreciation for all the many services they have given to the Church of the Larger Fellowship over the decades, we are delighted to award the CLF Unsung Hero Award of 2005 to Caroline and Nelson Simonson.
by Lynn Ungar, minister for lifespan learning, Church of the Larger Fellowship
I expect you know the feeling—both droopy and restless. You start pacing around the house, fidgeting with things, maybe look in the refrigerator, and then out it comes: "Mom, I'm bored!"
For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, July and August tend to be the months when things slow down. School is probably out, and the long stretch of free time that you've looked forward to is finally upon you. But the problem is that it can be hard to know what to do with your free time. You get used to running a mile a minute—get to school, come home, do homework, do chores, maybe get to soccer or dance or piano or whatever, or practice for any of those things, eat dinner, and before you know it it's time for bed. During most of the year you might feel like there's always someone telling you what you need to do next: Stop daydreaming! Pay attention! Can you focus, please? Stop messing around!
But vacation is the time for messing around and daydreaming, for letting your attention range far and wide. It's the time for taking it easy and lounging about—or for running and riding bikes and swimming. It's the time when all the possibilities seem to open up, so that you never know what might happen.
But what do you do with not knowing what's going to happen? How do you handle open space and open time? What do you do when there isn't anything to do? What if there's no school and your friends are out of town and your parents have told you to turn off the TV or the computer or the Game Boy or whatever? What do you do when you're bored?
Believe it or not, there's a lot to be said for being bored. Bodies need time rest and stretch. Minds need time to wander. Our spirits need time to get back in rhythm with nature. Boredom might just be a sign that you're having to get used to a different pace of life. But that different pace might be just what your mind, body and spirit need.
Besides, being bored might be the best way to move into something new. If you hate being bored, maybe it's a message from yourself to change things up a bit, to get out of your usual ways of thinking and acting and try something different.
Next time you feel bored, try brainstorming a list of things you could imagine doing. They don't necessarily have to be things you want to do, or things that it would be possible to do. You could even start your list with: "Lie around and be bored. Sit around and be bored. Stand around and be bored." But if you keep writing everything that comes to mind, without worrying about whether you're writing down good ideas or bad ones, then sooner or later you're bound to come up with an idea that you like.
Just to help you get started with your list, here's my brainstorm of some slow-paced, boring things that you might enjoy doing this summer:
Plant some plants. Watch for signs of growth. Take time to water and weed and look forward to vegetables or flowers. Enjoy putting your work into something that you have to imagine for a long time before you actually see results.
Lie back and watch the clouds. Imagine what shapes they look like. Wait for them to change. At night you can lie back and watch the stars. They change really slowly!
Pet a cat. Imagine what life would be like if you spent about 18 hours a day sleeping. Boring for sure, but don't most cats look happy?
Climb a tree. Then just sit up there. See the world from a different point of view. Look up through the branches and listen to the sounds of leaves moving in the breeze.
Look—and listen—for birds. Get a field guide book, or try an on-line field guide, such as http://bdi.org/, that will help you identify what kinds of birds live near you. Learn their names and what they look like. After all, these are your neighbors. Keep a list of the different birds you've seen.
Find a secret hiding place. Bring in treasures to make it your very own. Just hang out in your own secret spot—but let a grown-up know that you'll be hiding out, so that they don't worry when they can't find you!
Keep a journal. When you first wake up in the morning, try to remember your dreams. Then write them down, and see if your dreams are speaking to you. Or write down your daydreams or a poem or a picture or what you did that day or your observations of the world around you. If you don't care for writing, see if you can use a tape recorder to hold your thoughts and dreams.
Balance on one foot. Then try it with your eyes closed. Then try balancing different ways, like with a foot held out in front of you. See if it's easier with your arms above your head or out to your sides or just hanging down.
Look at rocks. See how many different colors you can find. Check for really tiny ones as well as big ones. Look for patterns, like spots or stripes. Look for heart-shaped rocks or other particular shapes. Start a collection.
Ask for permission to pick flowers—then press them. Put your flowers between sheets of waxed paper inside a big, heavy book like a dictionary. Put another heavy book on top. Then leave them there for several days. When they have dried, use them to make cards or artwork by gluing them to paper and decorating around them.
OK, there's my list of ten slow-moving things to do when you're bored. I'm sure you can come up with a lot more. I'd love to hear your ideas—send them to me at lungar@clfuu.org, and I'll post them on the KidTalk page of the CLF website. But whatever you're up to, I hope those of you in the Northern Hemisphere have a nice, relaxed—dare I say it—boring summer.
by Mary Zoll, Carlisle, Massachusetts
I do not care if your true god controls the whole sweet universe or just your own small piece of it. Your god may fit black holes and worms in some grand scheme and rule alone or with a multitude of jealous gods or spirits of wild animals and trees. This god may want you sacrificed, or awed by sacred myths, or praying on your knees. That god may let you meditate or smoke cigars and twirl around. You may prefer a god or goddess, think it's all a joke— there is no god, just science, cold and pure. Just tell me you belong, your faith's enough to let you sleep at night, despite sure death.
From How We Are Called: A Meditation Collection, Mary Bernard and Kirstie Anderson, eds. Published by Skinner House, and available from the UUA Bookstore (1-800-215-9076) or the CLF library.
...that you can purchase UU-themed order of service covers from the CLF Shop on our website? Go to www.clfuu.org and click on CLF Shop.
Last updated July 10, 2005
Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF), 25 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108-2823 Phone: (617) 948-6166 · Fax: (617) 523-4123 · E-mail: clf@clfuu.org
