On Nature and Death

Although I have yet to see the much-touted film Avatar, I was taken with this NPR Blog response to another writer’s reflections on the movie’s treatments of nature and death.

In particular…I am surprised to find that the perspective offered in the blog, rather than emphasizing the tragedy of multi-cellular life, and therefore the necessity of death, made me feel as if we ought, somehow, to try harder to live in ways that does such a situation justice.  Rather than lamenting and seeking, always, to escape death…we should spend more time and effort focusing on how to make the lives we do have worthy of their brevity.

These are, somehow, appropriate thoughts as I stand on the cusp of a new year which is guaranteed (in the next four weeks, at least) to bring many changes to my life.  Too often, I take my life for granted.  I don’t fear death, but nor do I really seek to make the days and hours and years of my life as rich and colorful and far-reaching as I might.

Perhaps, then, that is the change I will seek to embrace this new year.  Not a change for my personal self…but a change in how that self interacts with Life.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…

Christmas Archaeology

NPR recently reported this story about an archeological excavation of a Jesus-era house in Nazareth, the town where, the Gospels say, Jesus grew up and Mary received the news that she was to be pregnant.

Do you find that archeology enhances, or takes away from the mystery of the story itself?  Do you need hard proof to find a way into the story?

Blessed Solstice to all, today…on this darkest night, may you find the light within you that does not die.

Unitarians, Christmas, and Boundaries

Garrison Keillor is not known for his deep love of Unitarians.  His consistent and funny critiques on A Prairie Home Companion only lightly mask an actual dislike, if not contempt, for this creedless liberal faith.  We tend to be big fans of Garrison, and we laugh heartily at ourselves when he makes jokes at our expense…and most of the time, while I laugh, too, I wince a little.  His critiques are often spot-on.

Now, Mr. Keillor is taking on our tendency to try to celebrate Christmas without any Christ.  His recent critique is, while a bit scathing at times, perhaps deserved.  Why do we feel we have the right to rewrite sacred songs and carols that belong to the Christian tradition just because we don’t agree with all the words in some literal sense?  Why should we be the enlightened ones, who are smug enough to tell a 2000 year old tradition that we’ll take some of the ritual, but not all of it, thank you very much? I’m not at all convinced that we aren’t guilty of precisely the kind of elitism that Mr. Keillor is pointing to.

Each year, I groan when we get to the Christmas season, and we sing Christian songs with no Christianity left in them.  Why not sing something else?  Or, if we as a movement are really that averse to Jesus and to the Christmas myths (and I deeply, deeply hope that is not the case), then why do we have any business celebrating Christmas in our churches at all?

The beauty of stories and myths and legends is that we are invited into them.  We are invited to become part of the story, to learn what it might teach us, to walk for a while along a path that millions of others have walked, too, and to ponder the mystery of what that might mean.  They need not be literally, historically true in order to be True in some deep, human sense.

So, Unitarians, let’s cast off our intellectualism and our compelling need to change the words all the time.  Let’s give ourselves permission to enter into a great, old, beautiful story, and see what it might hold.  And if we cannot, then let us give up the pretense to Christmas as something real and living in our own lives.  No one said that religion was always easy, or comfortable.  But shutting the door makes sure that you never discover a way through that discomfort.

And as for me and my congregation…we will be singing the traditional words to Silent Night on Christmas Eve, as we stand together in the glow of candlelight, and ponder mysteries in our hearts.

What if?

A Religious Response to the Christmas Machine

I have long been a proponent of slowing down, of stepping off the hyper-consumerist track, of finding a way of life that does not conform to bottom lines, retail projections, and the need for storage units to hold all of your extraneous stuff.  Thus, I am gratified at this particularly retail-insane time of year, to see that others are taking up the anti-consumerist rallying cry, and grounding it firmly in their spiritual and religious values.

Now, I only have to ask myself…why aren’t there UU churches involved in the movement?

The Losses of Religious Relativism

Stephen Prothero, professor of religion and longtime advocate for greater religious literacy in our country, offers this reflection on the dangers of cafeteria-style religious life.

I have long been wary of what we lose when we take a little of this, a little of that, from wherever it suits us…and just disregard the parts of our traditions that we might have to struggle with, or disagree with.  At best, I think that our individualistic, consumer-oriented picking and choosing gives us a sort of duct-tape-and-baling-wire personal spirituality that lacks grounding in real tradition and community.  At worst, it can devolve into sycretism, misappropriation, and too much emphasis on the comfort of the individual.

A religious tradition should not always be easy, or comfortable.  The kinds of demands that religion ought to make of our lives should be great ones.  Religion is not another hobby, not a pastime.  It is a way of life, that demands commitment and energy and sometimes wrestling with angels.  When people think about leaving their tradition, or dabbling in another, we should send them deeper into it.  Perhaps, in this way, I never should have left Christianity.  I’m not always convinced I did, completely.  But I have grown to understand that it is in the long-term, in the living of a faith over time, that its riches and its deepest questions are unearthed.

Those Crafty California Unitarians…

Apparently, our secret is out.  Someone in California has discovered that rather than the mild-mannered, obscure liberal religion that we masquerade as, we’re really a well-oiled underground political machine.

If we had that kind of shadow power, what would we do with it?

Legislative ministries are popping up in UU churches around the country.  Direct-action social justice work right at the source.  What impact could we have here, if we chose to…?

How many ways to pray?

Prayer has always both fascinated and repelled me.  As a child, growing up in the forms and rituals of the United Methodist Church, I got hung up on whether I agreed or disagreed with the words I was saying.  As I grew into young adulthood, I longed to leave words behind and simply experience the sacred directly, bypassing the head altogether.  Now, I find that here, as in many other places in my life, I long for synthesis and integration.  I long for a prayer life, again, that is neither rigid nor accidental, but full of life and intention.

One of the things that attracted me to the practice and the study of Spiritual Direction was the sheer variety of ways in which human beings seek to access the sacred.  Spiritual Direction is one way…and a way in which one can have a chance to explore one’s ways, one’s paths, the places we stumble and succeed, the ordinary and the profane and the sacred…and find what is meaningful in all of it.

In this article from the NY Times, the author explores his own ambiguity about prayer across several traditions and philosophies, including spiritual direction.

Interested in finding a spiritual director for yourself?  You can locate one near you here.

The Universe is Fearfully and Wonderfully Made…

Some of you will argue, of course, that the Universe is not “made” at all, but simply is, self-created and self-sustaining.  Whatever the Ultimate Truth about it all may be (and I certainly do not claim to know it), there can be no doubt that our own Earth, fragile and beautiful and amazing as it is, is only the tiniest, merest slice of amazing.  Fortunately, we are granted a bit of perspective once in a while from NASA, most particularly from the arresting images provided by the Hubble Space Telescope.

I, for one, am deeply grateful for images such as these.  They put Humanity into perspective, they encourage humility and an acknowledgment of limitations, and wonder, and mystery.  How, peering into these vast and gorgeous slivers of space, can we possibly imagine that it is all about the Humans, after all?

Some find despair in such revelations, but I find comfort in being reminded how truly small, insignificant, and temporary I am.

Click on the Butterfly Nebula for a slideshow.

"Bidden or unbidden, God is present." --Desiderius Erasmus

More Things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio…

Like this beautiful creature, which graced the wood wall outside my office window today.  It is the aptly-named Giant Leopard Moth.

"O all ye things of tenderness and grace! Bless ye our minds and lift us up forever." --Harry Youlden, from Hymns for the Celebration of Life