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BY ALICIA R. FORDE, MINISTER, NAMAQUA UU CONGREGATION, LOVELAND, COLORADO
So I was getting my hair done.
January 7th—I go to this little place in Oakland, "Nappy or Not"—it's this tiny hair shop filled with laughter; filled with memories I associate with childhood— the comfort of having my hair pulled & tugged on by my mother or my aunt. This is a sacred experience for me and...
January 7th—the shop was rich with teasing, laughter, stories, music... customers flowed in and out...to the rhythm of hip-hop, r&b...classic soul ...the tired hum of talk show TV resting underneath it all. Five o'clock—the music goes off...a woman walks in with her son. He has shoulder length dreadlocks—he's maybe four or five— they're like a soft halo around his head these dreadlocks.
Five o'clock—the news comes on and the television becomes more than a hum.
The news headlines talk at us and we all stop. Our voices suspended in mid-conversation.
It is January 7th and in the city of Oakland you know—not far from where so & so goes to school? There was another senseless shooting bringing the number of "senseless killings" for the year in Oakland on January 7th to six.
And this little boy squirms in the barber's chair as the stylist takes a pair of scissors and cuts these long dreads up around his neck.
Cuts these dreads—each one by one— placing them into a bag for the boy's mother who says: The other kids tease him for looking too much like a girl.
There is a moment, a moment—listening to the story on the news—when I ask: what does it mean when a fourteen-year old holds a gun in his hand and uses it to take life?
There is a moment, a moment—listening to this mother talk about her son—when I ask: what does it mean when at four or five you have to defend your emerging identity against the violence of words?
There is an ongoing moment in which I ask myself what kind of world am I creating with my words, with these hands?
What am I willing to do to make it different? How is it that I am, like Dr. King, to "hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope"? I mean, have you seen the mountain of despair?
And in the midst of all these questions,
In the midst of violent deaths
right down the hill in Richmond
and next door in Oakland
in the midst of wars & global conflict,
in the midst of increasing homelessness, poverty, racial and economic injustices, job loss
and an overwhelming sense of mounting despair
as I behold the injustices of this world
I find that stone of hope.
I find that stone of hope right here in this community. Dr. King tells us:
The church has a great responsibility because when the church is true to its nature, it stands as a moral guardian of the community and of society. It [is our] role, Our role as a church...to broaden horizons, to challenge the status quo, to question and break mores.... WE have a major role to play in this [ongoing] period of social change.
The church has a great responsibility because when the church is true to its nature, it stands as a moral guardian of the community and of society.
It [is our] role, Our role as a church...to broaden horizons, to challenge the status quo, to question and break mores....
WE have a major role to play in this [ongoing] period of social change.
No more can we wait for the response—we are the response. Blessed by the god of grace & glory with the wisdom and courage to DO at least one thing as a community, To DO at least one thing in our daily living to move us all closer to the vision of peace
And I'm not talking about the lion lay down with the lamb kind of peace. I'm talking about the hungry are fed kind and the youth supporting each other kind and kids learning to read kind and the confronting systemic class issues & economic injustice kind of peace.
I am talking about the kind of peace that allows a four year old to grow dreads and not have to worry about defending his identity on the playground.
I am talking about doing one thing—as a community of faith. Challenge the status quo, question— refuse to give in to the social & cultural pressures to conform.
Stand together in solidarity to bring about social transformation. Start now.
Start now accepting the call to "set free those who are captive" Accepting the invitation to become Justice rolling down like waters.
We—a stone of hope amongst many—inheritors of a vision, have a major role to play in this ongoing period of social transformation.
Oh yes WE do.
Put on your marching shoes.
We are on our way.
BY TIM KUTZMARK, MINISTER, UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH, READING, MASSACHUSETTS
I don't know why I decided I would risk it. I don't know what bold yearning was driving me toward the edge. But one spring morning, I took a leap of faith. That day found me standing in a crowded parking lot, looking up. High above my head is a tall construction crane, rising fifteen stories into the clear spring sky. In the shadow of its cold metal frame, Jim, my incredulous partner, asks: "Are you really going to go through with this?" I smile quickly, and sickly, and make my way to the registration table.
First come the release forms, an endless stream of paper and pen, eliminating any legal recourse in case of injury or death. That done, two burly men approach me, holding out a black, belted body harness. I step into it and—click, click, click—they lock it tightly around my waist and legs. I waddle awkwardly over to the base of the crane, and my harness is snapped to four long, elastic bungee cords.
How suddenly the important things in your world can change. Those four bungee cords are now the most precious objects in my life, my link to the future. I am guided into a small, roofless yellow metal cage. The oily grinding of a motor clangs on, and I rise quickly, too quickly, up, up, up.
Looking down from the top of the fifteen-story crane makes everything but the pavement seem small. The crowd below joins in as a man with a bull horn begins to bellow: "10, 9, 8, 7...." I realize this jump is not going to happen in my own time, in my own way.
"Step out on onto the ledge," commands the fellow who is with me in the little metal cage. I step out, a prisoner on a narrow gangplank two feet wide by two feet long. I do the only sane thing left to do. I grab hold of the railing behind me, holding onto the safety of its solidness. "Hold out your arms out wide to the side." I open my arms. Why do I suddenly feel like Jesus about to be crucified?
"6, 5, 4...." Every cell in my body is screaming: "Do not go forward. Do not move off the edge. Do not step into the unknown."
"3, 2, 1, Bungee!" I release my hold on life and step forward, flying into the open space that is quietly calling my name.
It is risky business, this thing called life. It often feels as if we are balanced high on the edge of a shaky platform, far from the safety of the ground. Life can often feel as if we are caught in a countdown we have not started, but must somehow finish: "5, 4, 3, 2...." Life often feels like a leap into the unknown.
Look around us. Look at the uncertainties of today's world news: car bombs, gunshots, storms, terror—the unknown. Look at the political polarization in this country, listen to the debate on moral values—how will it all turn out? The unknown. Look at our own personal lives: many of us are facing things that feel unknown—uncertainties in our job or marriage, a child growing and changing, our own aging, the loss of someone close.
But the unknown—the edge—is not necessarily negative. The edge can be a place of remarkable opportunity. Philip Simmons, in his book Learning to Fall, writes:
I've always loved edges: the edge of night when color drains from the land, the edge of an argument where a fixed idea adjusts to other points of view, the edge of a body where skin meets air, or other skin. I love edges for the vantage they provide.
Our Unitarian Universalist faith has always been willing to step to the edge and push forward the evolution of the human spirit. At our best, we take to heart these words by poet Muriel Rukeyser: "Look! Be : leap ; Roar in the broad sky. Put your face to the wind. FLY."
But a word of caution: it is not wise to blindly leap. We must never step forward without being firmly connected to something. That morning of my leap of faith, I jumped out into the open space only because there were four bungee cords holding onto me. And so it is with our life. We need to know there is something to hold us and guide us as we step forward.
So let me ask you: What allows you to step into the unknown?
How we answer is, I believe, the foundation of our spiritual life. Knowing where we ground our trust is the source of our courage, our hope, and our vision for the future.
I would like to share with you four strong cords, four core principles of faith that hold me and guide me in my uncertain times. These allow me to get up each morning and meet a new day. They hold me at the moments of my greatest despair. They are personal, yes, but they are also rooted in our shared Unitarian Universalism.
What allows me to step into the unknown?
First: I believe that there is goodness within all people. I don't shut my eyes to the hurt and harm that ignorance and evil can cause. I've felt it in my own life and I've seen it in the world. But as a Unitarian Universalist, I believe that the human heart can be cultivated. This is the historic foundation of our Unitarian Universalist faith. I believe in human worth and dignity. I believe that, given the right circumstances, every one of us can manifest that worth and dignity in our lives, and in the world. I believe this, deeply. How could I not? I have seen so much beauty and so much care in so many different faces, in so many different places: in the isolation of the Burn Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital ; at a civil rights rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial; in the healing stillness of a spiritual retreat in upstate New York. I believe what my faith and my experience tell me. I believe in the goodness within us all.
Second: Despite the collective cynicism of our day, I believe we can still work together for the dawning of a more enlightened time. I believe we are moving slowly, ever so slowly, toward a better day. This was once a cherished value of Unitarian Universalism. And I believe it is still part of the profound religious vision we offer to the world. Even as we celebrate the beauty of each individual, we must realize that the true treasure of life is found only as individuals reach out beyond themselves. I'm not naïve. I read the papers. I know history. I hear the cries of greed, exploitation, power, nationalism, and war. But I also believe that peoples and nations are connecting and cooperating in ways never before imagined. Some national boundaries are being bridged; some bonds of unity are being forged to maintain peace and foster justice. Some people are reminding us that moral responsibility extends beyond the human world into the wondrous web of all creation.
However imperfect we may be, we are fashioning new ways of being in relationship with one another. We can add our voices to this growing chorus of non-violence, mutuality, and accountability. Our Unitarian Universalist religion still envisions a "world community with peace, liberty and justice for all." We may not see that day, and many generations may not see it fully realized. But I hope that, one day, history will be written by the heart.
Third: I believe that we are participants in an unprecedented exploration of spiritual truths. Prior to the last one hundred years or so, religious and spiritual traditions were largely kept separate and isolated in different parts of the world. The world was barely connected. But today, through travel and technology; through the mobility of ideas, through books and articles; through teachers and students—today, these different threads of religious thought are coming into contact with each other, informing each other, informing us. The many hidden schools of Buddhism are now talking to the mystical traditions within Judaism. Ancient earth-based traditions are coming into contact with Orthodox Christianity. Science, too, is broadening this view. For the first time in the history of the human mind we have access to the full breadth of spiritual wisdom. If we take this into our core it has the power to redefine our experience of the spiritual and philosophical life. I don't know what it will ultimately look like or feel like, but boundaries are mixing and merging into something timeless and new. The many facets of truth will only be found through ways both ancient and modern. And who better to lead the way than religious liberals?
Lastly: I believe there is something greater than my own self. I believe there is something greater than each one of us individually. It moves in my life and in the world. Each of us experiences this in a different way. We give it many names, or no names at all. But there is something awesome in this universe, and it holds my soul, and it makes me feel I can be whole. It makes me feel we all are part of something whole.
As we step out into the unknown, I believe that there is great goodness within all people. I believe we can still work together for the dawning of a more enlightened time. I believe that we are participants in an unprecedented exploration of spiritual truths. I believe we are all part of something whole. Let us take a leap of faith, knowing that the cords of our liberal religion can hold us securely as we jump.
BY BRAD GREELEY, BOARD MEMBER AND CANVASS CHAIR, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
The process of canvassing our global congregation is quite an undertaking. Each year the board canvasses itself in person. Board members then call some of you in the congregation to talk with you about CLF and ask for your pledges for the coming year. In addition, we do a special centerfold in Quest and send letters to everyone asking them to make a pledge to help our congregation meet its mission to you and to thousands of others.
This process for our 2006 canvass is now complete. Board members increased their pledges by an average of 36%. Some of you were able to increase your pledge. Others were not.
To all those who have made their pledge for 2006, we offer a resounding Thank You. Without your pledge we would not know how to plan next year's budget.
To all of you who, although you do not make a pledge, will make a contribution to the CLF in the coming year, we also offer a warm Thank You. Without your gifts we could not do all the things we hope to do as a congregation this year.
To all of you who are not yet sure, be sure: we need your help. Our planning includes gifts from new members, new givers and those who have given before but may not have given last year. We do good work, but cannot continue to do that work without your support.
Best wishes for 2006.
Please note: The deadline for nominations to the CLF board and nominating committee is February 1, 2006.
BY KRISTIN HARPER, MINISTER, UNITARIAN CHURCH OF BARNSTABLE, MASSACHUSETTS
I was five years old when I learned I wasn't white. I was in Kindergarten. It was fall in Massachusetts and the leaves had begun to turn. I was wearing a red, green and black plaid dress and playing with a friend in the sandbox. A little boy a couple of grades ahead of me called me "a little Nibbard"—at least that is what I thought he said. I ran home crying and told my mom that I had been called a bad name. I didn't know why it was bad. What I remember most was that my eight-year-old sister Rachel, the only other Black person in my family, kicked the boy. I began to cry because she was so angry. She grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the sandbox. At five I didn't understand the history or even the psychology behind the word, and yet from that moment on I knew I was different, somehow unlike those around me, excluded.
In Learning to be White: Money, Race, and God in America, Unitarian Universalist professor and theologian Thandeka shares this story: "When Jack was five, his parents gave him a birthday party and invited his relatives with their children. He remembers going to the gate of his backyard and calling his friends over to join them. His friends, Black, entered the yard. Jack became aware of how uncomfortable his parents were with the presence of his friends among them. He knew he had somehow done something wrong and was sorry." Jack did not know what he had done that was bad but he didn't want to make his parents mad—to be excluded from their love.
Bridges go both ways. So often when we speak about racism or race relations it is as if only one group is hurt, one group responsible, as if there is only one way to solve the problem. I began my doctoral dissertation with the words "Being Black in America is not easy..." and yet I know that being white in America is not all joy and light. The amalgamation of cultures and traditions in this country is often negated by the lumping together of everyone who might possibly fit into the "white" box. As a college student I watched in sympathy as my classmates, young white men and women, fought to find a piece of culture for themselves. They would buy African, Asian, Native and Latino/Latina clothes, books and music and show them off to proclaim their OK-ness, their coolness. We people of color call this cultural appropriation, or Lost Soul Syndrome. They called it a search to find a place to belong, a space of individuality.
I have seen many of our teenagers talk and walk in ways that imitate Black rappers and musicians, basketball players and other athletes. They seem not to want to be who they are, who they feel they have to be—"white." They have lost their Scottish, English, Irish, or Ukrainian cultures in order to fit in, to become American. These young people know that it isn't only the Blacks living in the projects who suffer. They know that it isn't only the Latinos who suffer from poverty and poor education. They know that Native Americans aren't the only ones who feel displaced. What does being identified as "white" do for their soul, for their dreams of happiness and friendship? Bridges of pain go both ways.
Daytona Beach Police Chaplain Larry Edwards tells a story about going to the home of a woman whose son had been killed. He and another officer went up to the door of her house. She refused to let him in. She told Reverend Edwards that the other officer, the white officer, could come in, but Edwards had to wait outside. Rev. Edwards refused. He told her that he was there to tell her that her son had died. At first she didn't want to believe him. She looked to the other office for confirmation. When it finally hit her, Chaplain Edwards put his arms around her to keep her from falling and to hold her. He says that at first she struggled and then she collapsed crying. Over the years he would stop in to visit her and see how she was doing. She explained one day that she had been mugged by some Black men and came to be afraid of all Black men. That it took his persistence to do his job, to be there for her, to comfort her, for her to let go of some of her fear.
One day after church I was to visit a member of the congregation I serve. A truck with a confederate flag and four young men suddenly changed direction and headed towards me. The driver honked and when I looked up he gave me the finger and the group of them yelled expletives and an ethnic slur at me. I sat for a long time at that light and for the first time in my life I was terrified. When I got to my congregant's home I sat for a little while, still feeling that terror. When it was apparent to me I could not be present to my congregant's concerns, I told her what had happened. We talked. I don't really remember what was said; she just listened, mostly, and after a while the terror left and we were able to move on to why I was really there. The bridge of healing goes both ways—so does the bridge of fear and anger.
I am angry that I am called a Nigger when I am taking a walk down the street or driving in my car. I am angry that people of color are used and abused by the media, by political parties, by some in the white community. I am also afraid—afraid of white people's anger toward me and of what some have done and tried to do. I am afraid that by being honest I might change how people in my congregation see me. I am afraid of losing my ability to minister to them. But I have listened to white people in the congregations I have served, in those with whom I have worshipped. White people, too, are angry. Angry that we are still dealing with the race question, angry that they feel forced to address an issue over and over again that seems never ending, angry that they are blamed for a system they did not create and oppression they did not participate in. And they, too, are afraid—afraid to say the wrong thing, afraid to be called a racist, afraid to be honest and perhaps lose the community of faith they hold dear. Bridges always go both ways.
I do not believe that racism will end in my lifetime, or even in this go-round of the Universe. I say this because it is a part of our nature to divide people; it is part of our society that there are haves and have-nots. It is part of who we are to find scapegoats, to be comfortable with those who look like and live as we do. In Croatia it is religion, in Afghanistan it is gender, in Rwanda it is ethnicity. Because in the United States skin color is the most obvious characteristic by which to separate people, I'm afraid that until we are all the exact same color, or we find different ways of relating with one another, racism will always be a part of who we are. Perhaps interracial procreation is what we need to be pushing.
Or perhaps it is possible to truly honor our differences through building the bridge of relationships. The bridge that must go both ways is one of friendship and trust. You must know that I am going to stick around even if you say something I think is racist. You must know that I will be there when you're sick or hurting or confused, even if we talk about race. You must know that even if we fall short of our promise, I will not walk out. And I must know, even if I am angry, even if I am hurt, even if you don't understand or we don't agree, that you will still trust me to be there and that you will still listen to my guidance and respect me as a fellow journeyer in faith. There must be people who are willing to remain at the table, share their stories, and, most importantly, share their friendship.
My father-in-law, Jim, has been best friends with a white man, Bob, for over sixty-years. Jim and Bob grew up in Culver, Indiana, where they now both live again. As youth they often hunted and fished together and Jim, who is a morning person, would arrive at the crack of dawn to get Bob up. Bob, however, is not a morning person and at times would want to sleep just a little while longer, so Jim would jump into bed with him and go to sleep. This is friendship. This is a relationship that has lasted through Jim Crow, Northern Indiana segregation, war, Civil Rights and Black Power.
For the most part, Blacks and whites in our denomination don't know one another in this deep kind of way. We have not yet formed the bond of trust I believe needs to be present in order to sustain relationships through the honesty that is necessary for real conversation about racism. I believe we must get to the point where maintaining our relationship is more important than the hurt or fear or anger that is involved in true exchange. This, for me, is what is missing in a workshop, a worship service, a program on anti-racism or white privilege or the socialization of white America.
The first thing we have so often failed to do is build bridges that go both ways, bridges of friendship, bridges of relationships, of trust and honesty. This is what is so hard. People of color and white people learning to trust one another, be with one another, care for one another. I don't mean the casual relationship you might have with the person in your building you say hello to, or your cleaning woman, the member of your American Association of University Women or Retired Persons or your children's teacher or the newspaper guy you say hello to every morning.
I mean someone you have over to dinner without cleaning your home, someone with whom you can take off your shoes even when your feet don't smell too fresh. Someone you complain with about your aches and pains, someone you call when the pain of life has left you in a fetal ball. Someone you've argued with about politics and religion and who then invites you to their Fourth of July celebration—and you go. Someone you would fight for and you know would fight for you.
Perhaps, if we built those bridges of true friendship, the pain and fear and hurt would end. Perhaps then we could find a viable solution to war and poverty. Perhaps then we could wipe out racism. Perhaps then Black children and white children, Asian children and Native American children, could join hands and let freedom ring. That is the bridge I wish to build—the bridge I hope that we can build together.
BY JANE RZEPKA, SENIOR MINISTER, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
Sometimes we—any of us—get into some kind of mess, large or small, where there really is nothing we can do. Not a thing. We are not fully in command. We have to find the courage to just wait it out.
According to Edna O'Brian, who wrote an essay on waiting:
We wait for money; we wait for the weather to get warmer, colder; we wait for the plumber to come and fix the washing machine; we wait for a friend to give us the name of another plumber; we wait for our hair to grow; we wait for our children outside school; we wait for their exam results; we wait for the letter that will undo all desolation; we wait for Sunday, when we sleep in or have the extra piece of toast; we wait for the crocuses to come up, then the daffodils.... We wait for dreams, then we wait to be hauled out of our dreams and wait for dawn, the mail, tea, coffee, the first ring of the telephone, the advancing day.
We've all observed a whole catalogue of ways of waiting in ourselves and in other people: there's the horticultural way of waiting, where you plant your perennial seeds in a little tray that balances on your window sill, and with a mild sense of anticipation, you wait for the slow ascent of the sprouts. There's the treading water way of waiting, where in some low-key way you work at it, steadily pumping your legs and moving your arms, swimming in place, checking off the minutes one by one until the test is over. Then there's the pacing the floor way of waiting—the frantic approach—where you pace around the room, or tap the table, or make those knitting needles fly, or bake three dozen cookies and make a pretty good dent in them, eating them as they cool. Of course, there's the worrying way of waiting: "Maybe she went to her friend Julie's house. And maybe on the way to Julie's—you know that awful steep hill? Maybe she fell off her bike. Or she was on her way to Julie's house and remembered she needed her social sciences book from school but the school was locked and she tried to break in and the police caught her and she's in jail." There's the "please-please-please" way of waiting—"Please-please-please let that college acceptance letter come today." There's the dreading way of waiting, too. "Ten days 'til the root canal. I'll bet it'll really hurt. Nine days 'til the root canal. I'll bet it'll really hurt. Eight days...." You've seen the fantasy way of waiting: "Oh good, only an hour and a half 'til they announce the lottery winners. I wonder how late the travel agent stays open."
And finally, among the dozens and dozens of ways of waiting that any of us can think of, is the angler's way of waiting. You get yourself out in a rowboat in a still pond, you bait your hook, and you sit there and wait. You don't feel one way or the other, particularly, about catching or not catching any fish. You sit there. You just sit there. Of all the ways of waiting, it seems to me this way, this image of the angler sitting in the row boat holds the most promise of a calming—spiritual, if you will—way of waiting.
Unitarian Universalists have a long-standing theological predisposition to believe in free will, so we are inclined to try to act in the face of adversity, to try to do something. Pelagius, in the 5th century, did us the favor of breaking away from the fatalistic, deterministic theology that suggests acceptance and waiting it out as the appropriate response to trouble. More often than not we preach a theology of empowerment, not waiting.
Maybe that's why waiting isn't my strong suit. Personally, I have tried out this whole list of ways of waiting. Sometimes all in one day. By happenstance, just once, on our family's sabbatical in Nepal some years ago, I got it right.
We had been hiking toward Mt. Everest for about eight days, so we were eight days from a road--not a road, really, but an airstrip of the sort you have to shoo the yaks off of before a little plane can land. Everything was great, except that our then-sixth-grader and I were sick.
We pitched the little back-packing tent, and Toby and I lay there to wait until we got better. The tent flaps were open to the Himalayan Mountain called Ama Dablam, and we waited there, watching the mountain and the clouds and sky that surrounded it. And we waited. Nothing hurt. We couldn't do anything. We didn't want anything. We couldn't eat anything. We just waited, there with the mountain. We just waited.
Toby and I both remember that period of waiting fondly. We felt completely at peace, surrounded by beauty. A peace, to be sure, created not by us but by a bug and a peculiar circumstance, but still, a useful lesson in waiting.
We got well, of course, after finally abandoning our American medicine and swallowing the who-knows-what-it-was medicine that the local people swear by. But sometimes while waiting in Boston traffic or late at night on tech-support hold, if not something more serious, I think of waiting in that tent, watching Ama Dablam, and I try to regain that mountain way of waiting.
You know the images that work for you when the waiting needs to settle in, whether they be as grand as a mountain or as simple as a cat in a sunny chair. May these images, these moments of waiting, be icons of peace and patience.
BY LYNN UNGAR, MINISTER FOR LIFESPAN LEARNING, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
Happy New Year! This January we get a couple of different New Year's celebrations to choose from. There's the one based on our solar calendar that happens on January 1st, and there's the Chinese New Year, based on the lunar calendar, on January 29th.
Here is what one CLF member living in Hong Kong, Heidi Heyns, wrote to us about celebrating the new year in China:
Kung hey fat choi! That is the Cantonese for Happy New Year. The Lunar New Year is the only day of the year in which all businesses are closed. Chinese families get together. There is a big parade through most cities, with dragons, lions and balloon characters. Fireworks are extremely LOUD! Since gunpowder's beginning in China, in the 17th century, I think, the louder the NOISE, the better job they do scaring away the demons and the curses. So, as you can imagine, the boomers at the fireworks here can send tremors through buildings throughout Victoria Harbor. Serious tremors! And, as Chinese legend has it, we must burn images of the things we want to have in the next life during the Lunar New Year's celebration. So they tear out pictures of watches, cars, photocopy money, and burn it all day and night! They place these pictures in waste cans on the streets or outside their apartments, even in the hallways of crowded high rises. Paper burning, fireworks, family gatherings, business closings, picnics, New Years cakes...oh, and everyone gets at least a four-day weekend. And most people get a red envelope from their employer with a full month's salary in it, as a bonus.
Kung hey fat choi! That is the Cantonese for Happy New Year. The Lunar New Year is the only day of the year in which all businesses are closed. Chinese families get together. There is a big parade through most cities, with dragons, lions and balloon characters.
Fireworks are extremely LOUD! Since gunpowder's beginning in China, in the 17th century, I think, the louder the NOISE, the better job they do scaring away the demons and the curses. So, as you can imagine, the boomers at the fireworks here can send tremors through buildings throughout Victoria Harbor. Serious tremors!
And, as Chinese legend has it, we must burn images of the things we want to have in the next life during the Lunar New Year's celebration. So they tear out pictures of watches, cars, photocopy money, and burn it all day and night! They place these pictures in waste cans on the streets or outside their apartments, even in the hallways of crowded high rises.
Paper burning, fireworks, family gatherings, business closings, picnics, New Years cakes...oh, and everyone gets at least a four-day weekend. And most people get a red envelope from their employer with a full month's salary in it, as a bonus.
Whether you figure your new year by the first of January or by the new moon of the first lunar month, you can certainly celebrate this time of new beginnings. Why not give your room a big spring cleaning? (The Lunar New Year counts as the beginning of spring in China.) Or get the whole family in on the act to do a thorough New Year's house cleaning, Chinese style. After all that good work, your parents might even be willing to give you a week's allowance in a red envelope! Fireworks aren't the safest noisemakers in the world, but at midnight on January 1st or midnight on January 29th you can make quite a ruckus banging on pots and pans. The noise is supposed to keep the dragons awake for the celebration. (Apparently dragons sleep during the rest of the year—no wonder it takes a lot of noise to wake them up.)
As a matter of fact, dragons aren't the only ones who could stand having a wake up call for the New Year. Most of us spend a lot of time only halfway awake, only halfway paying attention to the world around us—and the world inside us. Since oranges are a traditional food for Chinese New Year (they are a symbol of wealth), maybe you'd like to celebrate the New Year with this meditation for waking up your senses:
Get an orange or tangerine and sit down with it. Wake up your eyes by looking at it carefully. How would you describe the color? Does the color remind you of anything else you've seen? How would you describe the shape? Is it perfectly round or not?
Now wake up your sense of touch. Close your eyes and run your fingers gently over the surface. How would you describe it? Does it feel the same all over, or different in some places?
Now wake up your sense of smell. Start peeling the orange, and let the scent come to your nostrils. Does the smell change how you feel at all? Does the peel smell the same as the flesh?
Finally, when you are done peeling the orange, divide it into sections and wake up your mouth by involving your sense of taste. Eat slowly, letting the juice fill your mouth. Pay attention to the balance of sweet and sour, to the indescribable thing that makes it taste like an orange, or the subtle difference in taste between an orange and a tangerine. While you eat the orange, try to pay attention only to the experience of eating, to the small sounds of your chewing, to the feel of juice going down your throat, to the taste of tart sweetness, to the tiny lines you can see in each segment. Any time your thoughts drift away, come back to just the experience of the orange. By the time you are done, you will be, like the dragon, awake for your celebration of the New Year. Maybe you'll even be ready to bring a whole new quality of being awake and alive into the year to come.
Kung hey fat choi! Happy New Year!
The CLF offers a variety of online classes led by exceptional leaders and teachers within out UU movement. At the cost of $40 per class you can have the opportunity to learn about meditation, work with a writer/spiritual director on developing a statement of personal belief, reflect on how the writings of great figures from our UU history inform your personal beliefs and more.
To learn more about the schedule of when these classes and others will take place, to read descriptions of courses or to sign up, please visit our online learning center at www.clfuu.org/re
FROM A SERMON PREACHED BY DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. IN 1966 AT THE EBENEZER BAPTIST CHURCH IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA.
We who must keep the church going and keep it alive have certain basic guidelines to follow—to preach good news to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted...to set at liberty them that are captives. You see, the church is not a social club. The church is not an entertainment center. The church has a purpose. The church is dealing with ultimate concern. Sunday after Sunday, week after week, people come to church with broken hearts. They need a word of hope.... The church heals the broken-hearted.
Secondly, the role of the church is to free people, people who are slaves to prejudices, slaves to fear. The church is called to set free those that are captive, to set free those that are victims of the slavery of segregation and discrimination and those caught up in the slavery of fear and prejudice.
The church must preach the acceptable year of the Lord, not some period beyond history; the acceptable year can be this year. The acceptable year can be any year when we decide to do right, when we stop throwing away the precious lives that we have been given, when we keep our theology abreast with our technology, when we keep the ends for which we live abreast with the means by which we live, when we keep our morality abreast with our mentality....
These are our guidelines and if we will only follow the guidelines, we will be doing what the church is called to do. We won't be a little social club. We won't be a little entertainment center.
But we'll be about the serious business of bringing God's kingdom to this earth.
Last updated January 2, 2006
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
