Class and Unitarian Universalism

Two of the workshops I attended this GA were on classism. I am finding this to be a complex issue bound up with both difficult theological questions and disturbing emotional issues. Given our historical difficulty in confronting institutional and personal racism, it is not surprising that classism is sometimes seen as a diversion from 'the real issues'. But class and race are intertwined, and are woven with other 'isms' so that such such reductionism of oppressions is unhelpful. Consider that shame is a central emotional component that emerges in conversations about both class and race. I suspect that addressing shame with one of these 'isms' will carry us much of the way with the other.

Classism in the UU movement has a complexifying component: education. In many of our congregations, education is seen as more important than economic status, but education is bound up in economic status. But being self-educated is often not seen as an adequate substitute to many of us, as one workshop participant painfully made clear.

I worry that many of us make assumptions about the theological preferences of people based on class. I bristle at the conclusion that working-class people prefer an otherworldly theology to one focused on this world, as ours is. To me that just seems to be a way to excuse classism in our movement.

I think our strength is in our universalizing ideals: that every person has worth and dignity, that salvation is available to all every person, and that our salvation is bound up in a network of mutuality. These transcend class. We need to take them beyond words and into lived action.

Casting my Lot

On Saturday night, the two candidates for UUA president debated. I tried to hold an open mind going into this presentation; after all, my role at Unity Church was the "Hallman Intern", honoring her as a former congregant, and yet the minister of my home church is Peter Morales. I found myself leaving presentation still somewhat ambivalent, but casting my lot with the Morales ticket. Peter articulated issues facing the UUA quite well, though I would like to see Peter develop a more positive message of change for our movement. Laurel's message seemed to me to be 'let's stay the course', and I had hoped to hear something more visionary from her. Maybe that's my message to both candidates: offer me an expansive, bold, but possible vision, and I'm yours. Peter's attention to growing the movement - evangelism - seemed to be the best current articulation of vision. I look forward to the unfolding of this campaign, and to deeper reflection from both candidates.

Love and Death - Forrest Church

"Love and Death" was the title of Forrest Church's talk to a large GA group on Friday afternoon. Forrest spoke beautifully; this seemed to be a distillation, a concentration, of numerous previous messages into what will likely be his last words to many of us. He spoke of the most profound grace of performing funeral services, of the great improbability of each of us being here, and reminded us that grief is what trails after love. But, he reminded us that what remains after we die is the "love we give away before we go."

I was fortunate to be in the second row, and took a picture. The woman next to me leaned over, and said, 'let me see that picture'. She pointed out the spot above Forrest, and said, 'many of his pictures have that orb in them'. I do not know if such orbs are merely photographic artifacts, or have deeper meaning, a thinning of the veil, perhaps. At the very least, the orb is a fitting metaphor for attention to the journey through this life and into the mystery beyond, and I appreciate Forrest's contemplations on his journey.

Service of the Living Tradition

What a beautiful Service of the Living Tradition! Victoria Safford's sermon "Remind Us Again, Brave Friends" was perfect for the occasion, as she spoke of our role, and call, to offer blessings to the world, and we do this even in our imperfection, which gives permission to others to live in their imperfection.

I was privileged to be among those on the stage, receiving the blessing of preliminary fellowship. I felt deep gratitude to be in this body, to process to the stage surrounded by many old friends and good peers, and to have so many others looking on, a congregation both in the hall and over the internet. In my robe I found an old package of tissues; I was glad to have them.

I have loved the transition in form of the Service over the past couple of years from honoring the individual to honoring the gathered body; from an ersatz graduation ceremony to a service of religious covenant. This year, we did not walk across the stage, we did not even stand when our names were called. Instead, our images were projected on the screens as we were named. Thus, this roll call included those who did not come to General Assembly, either out of protest or for other reasons. Some effort was made to discourage shouting for individuals, and generally that worked: just a lone shout here and there, rather than cheering sections, as has happened in the past.

Some of my Starr King buddies and I retired to Waxy's pub for continued celebration; it seemed that half the congregation had reconvened there that night.

Security Theater at GA

After all the hoopla about the security perimeter, showing IDs, and the culture of fear at General Assembly, it comes down to this: a haphazard, thin show of security at the Ft. Lauderdale Convention Center. When we walk in, our IDs are cursorily checked, when we ride the buses , we don't show an ID. The security situation at this convention center was supposed to be fixed months ago, but now I understand it is pushed out to 2011. To me, this smells of interagency conflict and intransigence, the same kind of behavior that contributed to our failure to stop the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.

General Assembly - Ft. Lauderdale

The UUA General Assembly in Ft. Lauderdale is off and running. So far, it seems well put together, and plenary meetings and workshops are tight and well run. The opening ceremony, with the Sources Cantata by Jason Shelton and Kendall Gibbons, was beautiful, though I had to perceive that beauty through the distorted amplification. We still don't have a handle on how to support choral singing in a giant convention center hall. Kendall told me the recording was suprisingly good, so maybe I'll get a chance to hear that.

GA attendance is down about a third, I understand, from previous years. Not surprising. We're all cooking down here in the steamy Florida heat. I remember this heat, the same Houston heat and humidity, and while one adapts to it, one never truly gets used to it.

Beside the heat, my one other whiny complaint has been internet access. My hotel is great in every other way (free breakfast!), but even when I broke down and was ready to pay the usurious $10 a day fee for internet, it wouldn't work with my machine. The internet at the convention center cafe was broken, too. I was reduced to poaching free wireless outside the door of the low-priced hotel a friend stayed at. Finally, I found a coffeeshop with French pastries and free wireless., so I'm catching up on email, journaling, and these posts. Life is good.

2008 Berry Street Lecture

After the end of Ministry Days, the Berry Street Lecture is presented. This is an annual presentation dating from 1820, in dawning days of American Unitarianism. The offerings come from the most talented thinkers in UU ministry, and this year was no exception.

Christine Robinson offered a wonderful commentary for all of us who minister in support of the spiritual lives of others, comparing us to theme park designers, 'Imagineers' who at their best offer something more than fun and education - they connect us with the transcendent. I know this is true, from the days when I worked as a show operator at the Denver planetarium. The most loved shows we offered hinted at something larger, more meaningful, a greater purpose, than we experienced in our everyday lives. People came to these shows for more than the science.

But Christine noted that for many of us, the life of the spirit has been shamed out of us, and we in turn and (perhaps unknowingly) use sarcasm and cynicism to shame others. This, to me, explains well the vituperous response some of those in our midst offer to anything that seems even mildly spiritual. Maybe this understanding offers an avenue for compassion and healing.

John Cullinan, a first year minister, responded that he struggles with the anxiety of church administration that leaves little space for the work of the spirit. This rang true for me too, because I enjoy most aspects of administration, and can easily see myself drawn from spiritual aspects of ministry into the technical aspects. Thanks to both Christine and John for these insightful reflections.

Sermon: What Remains

This was my last sermon of my internship, and unlike the others, I was given free rein to pick the topic and theme. The initial theme was 'Impermanence'. This emerged. My worship associate, Craig Allen offered a words of welcome, referencing Heraclitus and Plutarch, that wonderfully set the stage for this sermon.

When I was a volunteer at the Denver Museum of Natural History, we often had opportunities to participate in other programs offered the museum. One of these was trip to a research dig on the prairie east of Denver. We traveled by bus out to a site, and visited various digs the team had going in gullies and washes in the area. At one site, Kirk Johnson, one of the research paleontologists at the museum, pointed out among several layers of soft rock the one thin layer that represented the KT boundary. This is the dividing line between the Cretacus and the Tertiary periods in geological history, between the time of dinosaurs and the time when dinosaurs no longer existed. The thin layer was the remains of a catastrophic meteor impact that wiped out the dinosaurs and a significant number of other species on earth.

Touching this thin dark layer, putting my fingers on it, had as much significance as touching a martyr's relic in some European cathedral; actually for me, it had more significance. I could feel, at least at some level, a sadness for all the life forms that ceased to exist in that short time. I also felt a chill, for this thin layer, this boundary, represented the contingency, the randomness, the seeming senselessness of the universe. It symbolized the reality of constant transition and churn. It reminded me that all things, and all people will one day die.

When we are gone, what will be left behind? What is our legacy? The most obvious answer (and hope) for many people is their children.

And yet, we've seen examples where this can be taken too far. I recall one friend, a university professor, who regularly lamented about his grown son, whose career choice, working in a big box store, and lifestyle, living in a trailer park, didn't measure up to my friend's hopes. He lived in anguish over his lost hopes, and couldn't see the good. His son was not a abusing drugs, like the sons of other men I knew, or estranged and out of contact, like the child of another.
Consider of Kahlil Gilbran, which we heard earlier:

Your Children are not your children
They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself...
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,...
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For some these words suggest too much permission, but I see in them as a reminder that our task as parents and as a loving congregation is to equip our children for their future. We cannot control that future and we cannot live it for them.

Others seek legacy through their vocation, hoping to leave some permanent body of work.
I know I've been guilty of this sort of thinking. What programs, what creations would I leave behind in my job, in my ministry, even here at Unity Church? Again, there is a danger here, of letting our egos take control. We want our work to remain when we are gone. We lose focus of the larger mission or purpose that our work serves.

When I get too focused on the idea that my work must have some permanence, I think of an incident that happened in Denver over a decade ago. Some Tibetan Buddhist monks had come to create a large sand mandala at the art museum, and over many days they carefully poured out intricate patterns of colored sand in a complex geometric design. When they were nearly done, a man jumped up on their platform and began to destroy the monks work, screaming something about 'the work of the devil'. I remember being so angry at this destruction, and not understanding how the monks could be so calm about the whole thing. But they simply reminded everyone they were simply going to sweep off the whole thing in the end anyway. I still remember thinking: sure a sand mandala is about impermanence, but no one got a chance to preserve the completed work with a photograph!

In striving for legacy, we long to see both how we fit into history and how we will be remembered in the future. In this process we lose sight of what really matters -- the here and now. Anne Morrow Lindbergh speaks to this:

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was, nor forward to what it might be, but living in the present and accepting it as it is now.

So while Morrow Lindbergh was speaking of coupled relationships with this quote, and it remains a favorite wedding reading -- it was read at my own wedding -- it applies to larger relationships, congregations, cities, even nations. In particular, I hope we as a nation can get beyond false, fear-based security of owning, demanding and possessing to a real security of living in the here and now.

Let me turn to one of the strong theological threads that weaves through much of modern Unitarian Universalist thought. This is Process Theology, a small but important theological strand which was developed initially by Alfred North Whitehead in the early twentieth century.
The basic idea is this. Rather than the universe being filled with relatively fixed things, like atoms and particles, the universe is better seen as in flow, a process of events, a becoming. Everything, atoms and molecules, even we as individuals, are comprised of a series of these events happening one after another. As each new event happens, the event makes decisions based on every prior event that has happened. Every event. That's a lot of input data. So these events are immediate, they come in and go out of existence in an instant.

But the remains of the events, the history, what Whitehead calls 'past occasions', are preserved forever, and they constantly feed the future.In this world of process, everything is alive.

Process theology contains the possibility of God. Yes, you can substitute another word for this possibility if you want, but I think it's good practice to reclaim good religious words like God for our own use. Now this process God is not the almighty, all-knowing, perfect and unchanging God of traditional Christianity, but a transformative being that is, like us, a stream of events, undergoing change, and fully embedded in the universe, deeply connected with each of us.

This god invites us toward creativity, toward engagement and beauty in this world. We are free, event by event, to follow or to ignore this calling, this lure toward what is good and beautiful. And when we respond, we inform and increase the potential, the possibility for good that is God. This god, unlike the ancient father god, can suffer with us, and experience joy with us, because this god is so closely connected with us. We are drawn toward this process god, and in responding, co-create with god, a just world, one full of joy, full of beauty.

I'm sure you've noticed several references from Buddhist traditions in this worship service. We used a hymn that quotes the Buddha, and words that recall Thich Naht Hahn's idea of interbeing. I find that Buddhist theology and process theology generally travel together as amicable companions. True, one is ancient and one is modern, but they share some essential concepts - ideas of constant change, of interconnectedness. I want to be clear, these are two distinct ideas and traditions, but the similarities allow us to compare them and come to deeper understanding of each.

But I'll be honest - I bring in elements from Buddhism because process theology is not a practiced religion, it's a theology. It offers little in the way of ritual, or poetry, or song, or heroic stories. I think that perhaps the reason process thought is not more widespread is that it is so academic and intellectual, with little to offer for the heart. Perhaps it is too new to allow the poets time for reflection. This is sad to me, because these ideas are so awesome, so expansive and far-reaching, I get a tingle up my spine, I feel myself carried away contemplating them. Perhaps some of you might find the poetic words or the stories that might bring these vast ideas into the small but welcoming chambers of our hearts.

Here's an example of what I mean: There is a story in the Buddhist tradition in which the Buddha was preparing to lecture to his monks who were gathering and taking their seats. The Buddha noticed a lotus flower in a muddy pond, and plucked it up, root and all, and held it up for all to see. Many of his followers didn't even notice, they were settling in waiting for him to speak. Suddenly, his main disciple, Maha Kashyapa, smiled. The Buddha saw his smile, and acknowledged that he understood the message. The message was a truth that could not be communicated with words or with the intellect.

Similarly, in Kenneth Rexroth's poem, a version of another old Buddhist parable, the Buddha communicates not with words, but with leaves. In Rexroth's poem, the Buddha said,

"I have given you
A handful of truths. Besides
These there are many
Thousands of other truths, more
Than can ever be numbered."

Buddha reminds us that the truths he has to offer, and all the truths we know are only a small part of all the truths there are. In the world in process, perhaps it is not so much that the truth we know is only a part of all the truths, but also that all truth is expanding and evolving, as we work with the creative and transformative force in the universe in acts of loving creation.

Back at the Denver dig, I learned another important lesson about what remains. At another site a few hundred yards away from where we found the KT layer, graduate researchers had exposed a formation of gray shale that had once been mud at the bottom of a pond. Kirk picked up flat pieces of shale from a pile of rock, and casually split them with his rock hammer. Most split open to reveal large leaves of various unusual forms. Kirk would pick up a piece of rock, split it, and pass the specimen to one of us, before quickly picking up another, and splitting it.

We were soon surrounded by a wealth of these fossils, dozens of them. Kirk explained that the numbers of these fossils allowed statistical analysis describing the kind of trees in the forest and giving clues to the climate. Clearly this had been part of a temperate rain-forest. Kirk was excited about this project because it showed that life had returned maybe ten times more quickly after the meteor catastrophe than was previously thought.

These fossil leaves were part of some storm run-off sixty five million years ago, buried in the mud. They formed the basis of an ecology that allowed the rise of mammals, and ultimately humans. As they lay in the sun for the first time in millions of years, I realized their connection with us.

To me, the leaves in their layers of rock are a metaphor for the past events in process theology, laid down in some ancient period, yet somehow available to us as we move through this world of change.

So this is end. The end of my last sermon in this role as Hallman Ministerial Intern at Unity Church. In the fall I will assume a chaplaincy residency at United Hospital here in St. Paul. I will keep a respectful professional distance from Unity Church, so that the new Hallman Intern, Leon Dunkley, can most fully assume this role.

I am deeply grateful for my time with you. It has been a wonderful, challenging, creative and joyful time of learning and becoming into ministry for me. I hope my service here has both responded to that larger luring toward goodness and creativity, and been in service of you, in your own spiritual transformation and growth.

When I think of what remains, and what should remain, it is love. Perhaps the words of the song Everything Possible by UU minister Fred Small, the one sung last week by Kerri and Rob, are the best reminder. "the only measure of your words and deeds will be the love you leave behind when you're done."

More Festival of Homiletics

Micheal Slaughter gave a sermon with his characteristic integrated and flawless screen presentation on how his church is becoming less self-focused and more transformative, by working out in the world, especially in Darfur. On of his earliest actions on this topic was to exhort everyone to give as much to the church's Darfur mission as they spent on their family for Christmas. And they did - some $1.4 million.

Both my learning and my angst at this conference is around the power of text-based preaching. For those who believe that the text has spiritual or divine significance, such preaching carries tremendous power. But my angst is that for most UUs (and this includes me), texts are merely the words of inspired people. There may be spiritual power in those texts, and I believe this is possible, having experienced that power, but they are not somehow created distinct from more ordinary texts. So we who preach in such congregations have a larger library of texts to choose from, but each of those texts must prove itself in the moment. Our people will not assume that because it is from the canon of Scripture, it is somehow the Word.

I find that the tradition at Unity Church of using recent poetry for texts works well. I've appreciated learning how make such hermeneutic, such 'reading out', work in this congregation. I suspect that each UU congregation has its preferred broad canon, and part of the relationship between the minister and the congregation is shaping and using that canon.

Homiletics Festival

This week, I'm attending the 16th Festival of Homiletics, in Minneapolis. This is essentially a meeting of several thousand preachers, to talk about preaching, and hear great preachers. Walter Brueggemann, Jim Wallis, and Michael Curry are among those who spoke yesterday and today; William Willimon and Michael Slaughter are up tomorrow.

Anna Carter Florence gave a talk which connected deeply with me. She said that as homiletic preachers, we must give people faith that they can interpret and empathize with a text. They can do this themselves! We merely show them the way. This is testimony. It is not about telling one's own story, but showing it, but exposing oneself in the process of showing the way.

Barbara Brown Taylor spoke of her lessons as a preacher and a writer. I was glad to see that her advice for preparing sermons was the same advice for writing, things like: establish a writing routine; show, don't tell; use language of the body; welcome provocations; and of course, don't lie (or exaggerate, or plagiarize). Much of this is not new; I've been around Liz all these years, and a bit of this has rubbed off.

Next steps?

My little life has been a busy one for the last few weeks. I've been focusing on completing the paperwork for preliminary fellowship in the UUA, so that I may join some of my fellow seminarians and ministers at the cermony of the Service of the Living Tradition at General Assembly in Florida, next month. I used to have real ambivalence about this ceremony, just as I have had about most graduation ceremonies, but I have come around. I'm looking forward to this, especially processing in the company of peers.

I've been accepted into a chaplaincy residency program at United Hospital in downtown St. Paul. This nine-month program will give me the necessary clinical pastoral educational credentials to work as a chaplain in many hospitals and related settings.

There are several motives for choosing this chaplaincy program. I remain focused on ministry in the parish, and have sensed, and been advised by several I trust, that a year of chaplaincy will only make me more effective in parish ministry. I also realize that finding the 'right' parish position might require some flexibility, so having the credentials to work as a chaplain could be useful. I'm excited about this program; two good friends in ministry were quite persuasive about the quality of the program. Finally, Liz and I just weren't ready to pick up and move so soon, after just a year in these wonderful cities. Even after this winter.

Sermon as Story

I've been attending a wonderful storytelling class offered at Unity Church. Last week, Loren Niemi spent time with us on ghost stories and other stories of grief and loss. In the craft of telling, he was masterful in the use of long pauses between parts of the story. These I began to see as white space, which is the essence of good visual design of printed materials. This is just one lesson I learned from this series of gifted teachers and tellers.

Loren described how, in telling his stories, he longs to put his audience into a sort of trance in preparation. I said, perhaps a little flippantly, "that's called worship", and he agreed. While I hesitate to use the word 'trance', which has connotations of hypnotism or suspension of belief in our culture, the idea of being in an enhanced state of readiness, in a contemplative or meditative state does make sense to me. Good liturgy creates this enhanced state. This just puts more weight on the sermon to deliver an authentic and worthwhile message, one that begins to address people's needs for healing and wholeness. In this awareness, I am humbled by the possibility that the pulpit offers, and I become more respectful of those who listen to my words and engage in conversation with me.

A Weekend of Music

This weekend has brought the confluence of two major musical events in at Unity Church, offering an overwhelming amount of energy and activity.

The Arthur Foote Music Festival has been in planning for some time, and it came to wonderful fruition on Sunday, with both choirs, percussion, and strings, leading to powerful performances of Eric Whitacre's "Cloudburst" and Ben Allaway's "From This House To The World".

Through the efforts of Unity Church member Rick Heydinger, the Shades of Praise gospel choir was flown to St. Paul for a weekend of performances at various local churches.
The choir was fabulous and energized, and had even us arrhythmic and reserved types up moving and clapping. We hope these event will lead us into partnership with both historically black and white churches to work on common social concerns, to 'build the Beloved Community', to use M. L. King Jr's. language.

While one could play or listen to music in isolation as part of a personal spiritual practice, making and enjoying music together as part of a religious community has a tremendous power that goes far beyond the personal. We need to remember the importance of music in our various religious communities.

Backups

A friend of mine at school wrote a plaintive note to the school list asking for photos of her time at school, as her computer disk had crashed and she lost all her photos. When we were in New Orleans, we talked with Matt, the homeowner whose house we helped repair, and he noted one of his most painful losses was all his photes, which he had backed up to CD, but not stored offsite. I worry about my photos. And then I worry more about all the documents I create in ministry: sermons, articles, lesson plans, notes and other stuff I want to hang on to.

I'm beginning to make my acquaintance with Jungledisk, a front-end program for backing up to Amazon S3. S3, or Simple Storage Service, is a web-based data storage service, redundant, secure, industrial strength, but not designed for the ordinary user. Jungledisk acts like a disk drive that pushes your data to S3. You can copy things to and from this disk drive. You can also set it to back up your data periodically; I have it back up every four hours, and keep old copies up to 60 days. The service is relatively cheap: roughly $0.15 per gigabyte stored plus $0.10 per gigabyte transferred in; my backups for my home and work machines are costing me about $2 per month. Jungledisk is a $20 shareware app that you can try for free.

I'm not sure this is the ultimate solution. Jungledisk is a little crufty on the user interface. But I do know I am more comfortable knowing my stuff is 'out there', backed up remotely as well as locally.

Ceili Gets Nervous

Our dog Ceili has just watched Liz pack a bag for a weekend trip. This always upsets her. She sometimes is relieved to see her own bed and bowl as part of the luggage, but even then, she's never sure she is included until she is invited into the car.

Liz is visiting her friend Ruth, who is working on a program called Singing Meditation. This is a small group spiritual practice consisting of cycles of singing interspersed with times of silent meditation. Liz will help Ruth with a retreat this weekend, at St. Bede Monastery, but Liz's primary activity is working with Ruth on a book about this practice. Liz's website is here.

Thoughts on Grieving

I've been the officiant for a couple of memorial services recently. To prepare, I speak with the family, and write an eulogy, prayers and other words, and help them choose readings or hymns if they wish. I'm finding this work is emotionally challenging on many levels. Certainly, I'm helping people who are in various states of grief. Sometimes I connect and offer help, and sometimes I fear I'm of little help.

I also find myself triggered, and my own grief is stirred up. We usually include a brief 'Words on Grief', and in this, we remind people that every loss brings back every previous grief and loss they've suffered. I'm finding that this applies to me, too. One of the recent services was for a woman who was a nurse in the War, and this brings back thoughts of my mother. I can't normally share this with the grieving people, so I carry it elsewhere. But it is there, and in a peculiar way, I appreciate that this comes up. It is a gift that comes with serving people who suffer a loss, that I can connect with that suffering through my own past losses.

Photo by Milad Gheisari [Sepulture {regret}]

Return from NOLA

For me, the New Orleans pilgrimage offered a chance for self reflection - it uncovered some weaknesses, some aspects of myself that I want to change, but it also brought an upwelling of gratitude. I am reminded that I am fortunate, and that yes, I work hard, but others work hard too, and they face larger challenges. We are grateful to be of service to them. Here are some pictures of us at work.

Where we Worked

The house we repaired was a "double shotgun", a duplex about 26 feet wide by 70 feet long. The rooms are connected together without hallways, with the living room followed by the parlor, a bedroom, bath, bedroom, and finally a kitchen. It didn't make any sense to me why such a layout was used, since there is no privacy. Then we had a day of 80 degree weather, with a light breeze. With the front an back door open, every room was pleasant. There are few closets in this house. We were told that closets used to be taxed as rooms, so people didn't build them.



Matt and his wife Jewel own both sides of this house. Before Katrina, these two lived on one side, and his nearly grown children live in the other. The family cooked and ate on his side. Sounds like a great arrangement, and they look forward to returning to it. He made sure to rebuild both sides the same, so when his children move out, he can rent one side. He hopes to leave each child half the house, if they want it, when he and his wife are gone.



This family has put up with many trials after Katrina. They are dispersed with extended family throughout the region. Matt's job was displaced to Baton Rouge, and he hopes to transfer back to New Orleans. Their house and storage locker have been broken into several times, their belongings taken, even the copper water pipe they had installed under the house was stolen. I am amazed at the perseverance of Matt and Jewel. They are only two of the many strong, enduring, and tenacious people that make up New Orleans; people that are what I came to love most about this city.



Photo: Lunch break on the porch of Matt's house.

Staying Behind

Today is the first day I'll go to our work site, the home belonging to a man named Matt in the lower ninth ward. We are doing significant finish work with the hope that he can move into it in the next week.
First UU Church of New Orleans, where we have been staying, has asked us to leave four or five people behind each day to work on projects around the church. Some of us groused about this request. I have chosen to stay behind the last two days. I have found myself in the role of informal crew chief, since our real construction talent is out on the work site. We've installed some drywall and replaced a bathroom sink.
In its own way it has been satisfying work. I see all these things as interconnected, and the work on this church is as needed as the work on the house of a Katrina survivor. This church has made supporting pilgrims like us a part of their mission, and I am glad to support that mission, and through that I indirectly support the work of rebuilding community.

Photo: Several of us working with Matt on exterior siding.

NOLA - First Impressions

Liz and I are part of a group of fifteen Unity Church members here in New Orleans for a week of pilgrimage. This is a pilgrimage, more than a service project, because while we are doing rebuilding work, we are also invited to witness, to reflect, and to share our experiences with this devastation and suffering.

Our first day involved a driving tour through much of the city, exposing us to a small part of the devastation. Even two and a half years later, vast areas of rawness and destruction remains, and immense numbers of people are affected. This immensity is the hardest thing for me to grasp. We are also reminded how close to the edge of disaster we all are. It is only a matter of degree. Even though we may think we have financial resources, family connections, government support, and we have followed the scout motto, 'be prepared', the bottom may drop out at any time. This is a humbling realization for me, and it reminds me to be grateful for all the ordinary times, as well as the good times. I am reminded of this especially in this town that very dearly wants to "Let the good times roll!"

Photo: Ninth ward near levee break; only a few houses remain.