Excellence in Ministry - Continuing Development

One of the hot-button topics in UU ministry is how ministers might receive continuing guidance after full fellowship. This is almost immediately interpreted as 'evaluation', connecting as a tense band of anxiety directly to MFC Rule 24, which describes under what conditions a minister's fellowship might be terminated. I wonder if there is another way this might be approached.

I just talked with one of the professional chaplains at the hospital, and he described a most wonderful experience with the peer review process that is required of professional chaplains. This is a new process: the Association of Professional Chaplains recently began to require these reviews. Basically, every five years, a chaplain puts together a group of three or more peers for a review. The chaplain meets with them and presents to them for an hour and a half or so. This presentation is like a Quaker 'clearing committee', in which the presenter directs the discussion, and the peers ask leading questions, helping the presenter come to better self understanding of career or related issues.

I wonder if we UU ministers, who often operate so independently, might learn something from a model like this. Perhaps we can learn to give and receive feedback in a supportive way, without heaviness of evaluation pulling us all down. Certainly we all deal with enough evaluation in other areas of our ministry!

Excellence in Ministry

Christine Robinson over at iMinister has been blogging in preparation for the Excellence in Ministry conference, where she will serve as the official blogger. Some of her initial posts have generated lots of interesting comments. It's hard for me, just over a year out from my visit with the MFC, not to add my thoughts.

Going through the fellowship process wasn't easy. We're not the only denomination that has such a process. I'm watching a friend do the dance of angst as she seeks ordination with the Presbyterians. Their process seems to be more like a bar exam than a dissertation defense, with a battery of written tests that less than half pass on the first try, according to Carol Howard Merritt at Tribal Church. But the Presbyterians face the same question we do: does the process do a fair and effective job of identifying those who will be successful ministers? Or does the denomination instead end up "Saying goodbye to our seminarians, letting them work at Starbucks, while forty percent of our congregations flounder, without pastors?", as Carol puts it. I understand this is true of other mainline denominations, too.

We UUs have been blessed with more ministers than parish positions. The denomination, and individual churches, could be selective. But times are changing. At the GA Presidential Candidates Forum in June, Peter Morales said, "we are going to lose half our ministry during the next presidency. Three out of eight of our ministers are 58 years of age or older." My fear is that as they leave, our congregations will flounder, too, in a typically unique UU twilight zone that is neither lay-led fellowship nor professionally ministered church.

I think of another friend who was happily pursuing ministry as a Licensed Local Pastor in her Methodist congregation. This is a specialized ministry, for a person who intended to serve a specific church. The requirements are less strenuous than ordained ministry; and the expectations of ministry are more narrowly defined. Perhaps this model, or deacons, or some other paraprofessional level of ministry might make sense. Perhaps the path to professional ministry might involve intermediate steps in which the candidate both performs ministry and is paid for it.

We have been bold before. Our lay-led fellowships were a model of church in which no minister is present. They have their places. Can we invent a model of ministry that serves our smaller churches that do want some form of professional ministry? Can we invent a model of ministry that makes new church planting a possibility? Can we invent a model of ministry that engages our most committed laypeople in new levels of engagement and service?

DBT as Spiritual Practice

Yesterday, I attended a one-day training on Dialectical Behavior Therapy, which we use at the hospital to treat patients with various mental illnesses, including borderline personality disorder, depression, and anxiety. As a chaplain, I see many of these patients as they try to understand their illness in terms of their religious beliefs. I've encountered DBT in conversations with these patients (many of whom love to call it Diabolical Behavior Training).

DBT was created by Marsha Linehan, who drew methods from Zen Buddhism to treat suicidal patients. The Buddhist strands are apparent in this therapy. A significant focus of DBT is mindfulness training, learning to focus the mind and attend to one thing at a time. A koan-like 'both-and' aspect is the core of many messages given patients (this is the dialectic part): 'You are doing the best you can' and 'you can do better', or 'I can insist on my rights' and 'I am still a good person'. The Buddhist concept of 'skillful means' runs through the components on skills development and skillful execution.

DBT participants are required to keep a weekly diary card, on which they record numerous aspects of their feelings and behaviors, including use of the skills and abusive or harmful behaviors. The idea is to use the recording to identify patterns and linkages between feelings and behaviors, and then work to modify them.

What strikes me is that DBT looks like spiritual practice, and I mean that in the highest sense. There is an expectation (clearly stated) of mindful attention to the skills and practices. Modifications of lifestyle, such as healthy eating and sleep patterns, are expected of each participant. One is expected to apply an almost devotional repetition to the daily activities through the use of the diary card. These techniques have been shown to be helpful for patients in randomized trials; could they be helpful for all of us, whether healthy or ill? And if DBT can be seen as spiritual practice, does this not support the benefit of spiritual practice (in all forms) for all?

Picture by Untitled blue

Mind-Body Medicine

Last week, another chaplain resident and I attended a five-day training presented by the Center for Mind-Body Medicine. What a phenomenal experience. It was a sold-out event, with well over two hundred people in attendance, including over twenty from the hospital system that I am part of. We're talking doctors, nurses, psychotherapists, hospice workers, and the rare chaplain or two.

I have encountered many of the healing and self-care tools presented, including meditation, relaxation, biofeedback, movement, and guided imagery, these have been presented in the past as alternatives to science-based medicine. I loved that this training presented significant scientific evidence supporting these tools, including many controlled double-blind studies. The fact that my hospital system and the Veteran's Administration, among others, is beginning to adopt these tools is most promising. As a chaplain, I know that mind and body and spirit are deeply interconnected.

Much of our time was spent in small process groups: eight sessions of two hours each. My co-worker and I noted how these groups compared to the group we have in our Clinical Pastoral Education residency, and how difficult it was for many people, especially mental health workers, to get comfortable being a group participant. Perhaps they are used to leading groups, and not being a participant, or perhaps they just focus on one-on-one client meetings. Part of my hope is that this work may begin a renaissance of group therapy as part of the overall treatment plan for people dealing with mental health issues.

Sermon: Paths to the Top

This is a sermon presented to the UU Congregation at Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on Sept. 28, 2008.

Since the congregation is in an interim time, I offered to present (with the interim's approval) on the four varieties of spiritual practice that Peter Tufts Richardson developed. I invited them to add a small hand motion to the Joys and Concerns, 'from my heart out into the universe'; I mention this in the sermon.


It’s so good to be back in this space.
The last time I was here, my hands were sooty and my shirt was sweaty
as I helped my friend Mark Rosauer and several others of you
disembowel and dismantle the old pipe organ that was here.

In an odd way, that was a kind of spiritual experience.
I was glad to be included in the Tuesday morning spiritual practice group
They meet every week
to carry out various improvements to the church building.
The work is satisfying and
There is an easy camaraderie among those who do it
they come nearly every week to work together
compensated with donuts and cups of tea.

Let me assure you that there are many much larger churches
that would be hard pressed to put together even one work party
of a half dozen or more people for one project,
much less do it week after week.

For some of us, great emotional and even spiritual satisfaction
comes from that kind of consistent, devoted effort, week after week, year after year.
For others, spiritual experience comes in a flash,
some momentary event that truly reached down deep inside us,
and turned something, changed something .
Maybe it was a walk in great natural beauty,
or wonderful music, or reading profound poetry.

Whatever the source of such inspirational experiences,
I suspect most of us seek to repeat them,
to find what it is that opens us to them,
to find ways to deepen and better understand them;
and thus better understand the world we inhabit.

This is the essence of spiritual practice.
However we define spirit, the things we do,
be they working, hiking, singing, or meditating,
that carry us into place of inspiration are spiritual practices.

PRESENTATION OF THE MODEL
There's a well-known religious metaphor
that suggests we are each on a spiritual journey,
traveling up a great mountain.
There are numerous paths on that mountain,
paths that wind and cross, that lead mostly up,
but occasionally down and sometimes sideways.
Some paths are gentle and protected,
while others are exposed and treacherous.
But the point is that all these paths ultimately lead to the top,
to whatever it is that we consider ultimate in religious experience.

Most often we think of these distinct paths
as representing different beliefs,
the various theologies that co-exist in the religious landscape.
Here's the Catholic path, there's the Lutheran one,
over there a Buddhist path.
And how we bristle when a person or group
claims that their path is the 'one true path'
and all the others fail to reach the top!
For many of us, this brings up anger at such dogmatic exclusiveness.
For some, such dogmatism brings up sadness
as we recall our own, exclusivist religious upbringing,
and the effort it took us to shed those beliefs.

But there is another way to see these paths we follow to the top of the mountain.
Perhaps these journeys are more about practice than belief,
about what we do
rather than what we think or say.
But hard as it is to articulate our theological beliefs,
we often find it harder to find the words
to describe what spiritual practices touch us and inspire us.
We need a topographic map that points out these paths,
these Journeys, and gives them names.

SOURCE OF THE MODEL
How might we do this mapping?
How might we understand the varieties of spiritual experience?

Since we UUs tend to be rational scientific people,
it might make sense to organize and classify these experiences in some way.
Peter Tufts Richardson, a UU minister, does just this in his book,
Four Spiritualities: Expressions of Self, Expressions of Spirit.
He develops a model that suggests there are four broad types of spirituality,
although they are interrelated.
He suggests that our personality or worldview influences
which of these spiritual practices we will find most appealing.

Now Richardson does not pretend this is a new idea.
He melds an understanding of spiritual practices
from many of the great world religions
to frame his unifying model of four spiritual paths.

Richardson's model also combines these religious ideas
with two specific dimensions of Jungian psychology.
The first dimension is how we perceive the world.
Do we primarily perceive through our senses or through our intuition?
In other words, do we observe things with common sense,
or do we just know through hunches?
The second dimension is how we make decisions.
Do we make choices primarily by thinking things through
or by tapping into our feelings?
That is to say, do we lead with our head or our heart?
The two options in each of these two dimensions
generate the four spiritual Journeys
that we’ll examine shortly.

But before we do, let me note that these four quadrants
are closely related to the Myers Briggs Type Indicator ,
which many of you may be familiar with.
Myers Briggs is personality tool often used to study how people might work together.
We don’t have time to explore it more deeply today,
but I will mention it as we explore these spiritual types.
If you’re not familiar with Myers Briggs, I'd suggest a little internet research;
you can evaluate your 'type' on-line, and it can be quite revealing.

So, Richardson’s model outlines four pathways
through which we experience the realm of the spirit.
I'm going to spend a little time exploring each of the four Journeys,
and touching on how they relate to each other.
I think as we explore these pathways,
some of you may recognize yourselves
or maybe your friends or family.

THE FOUR PATHS
(Move to first location, equipped with a large book - open it to reading.)
The first path is called the Journey of Unity.
The Journey of Unity focuses on the great organizing principles of the universe.
What are the great questions, and what might the answers be?
The focus here tends to be an intellectual one,
with deep theological or philosophical explorations as part of the conversation.

People on this path perceive the world through their Intuition,
these are the folks who try to read between the lines, and consider future possibility.
They base their decision-making on Thinking;
that is on the head, depending on rationality, rather than the heart.
Followers of this particular path are a minority in the general population,
but they are significant in Unitarian Universalist communities.
Our worship experiences reflect this. We love discussion groups.
In most UU churches, the sermon is the center-point of the worship, with academic quality talks, carefully prepared, even down to the footnotes.
Does this sound familiar? (hands)

(Move to next location, a carafe, and pour a cup: “Regular or Decaf?”)
The second path is the Journey of Works.
The people in the Journey of Works are focused on getting things done.
This is where the Tuesday work crew that removed the organ comes in.
These are responsible people with a job to do.
People here are head oriented, reasoning things out,
and they see the world as it is now, through their senses.
They see what is missing, or what is not working, and move to fix it.

They prefer to have rules, they love tradition,
and they want people to follow the rules and respect the tradition.
Tradition and rules are important here,
but that doesn't mean that people on the journey of works are necessarily conservative.
In fact, I'd suspect that in our congregations,
many of the folks on the front lines of social justice work
would say they are on the Journey of Works.

(Move to the next location, equipped with a votive candle - light it.)
The third path is the Journey of Devotion.
This path is about ritual: lighting candles, reciting the words,
singing familiar hymns, joyful celebrations, these are all important.
Repetition, symbolism and stories are important,
especially stories about heroic people from our past.

This is one of the two heart-centered Journeys, and we see a subtle shift,
to the realm of emotional response in spirituality and worship.
Like the Journey of Works, those on this journey are focused on the here and now,
but the focus is on the ritual or the experience itself.
The Journey of Devotion is well represented in larger society,
but I think it is less represented in Unitarian Universalist communities.
I think our history in the radical side of the Protestant dissenting traditions
caused us to be leery of ritual for a long time.

(Move to the final location, equipped with a singing bowl - sound the bowl.)
The fourth path is the Journey of Harmony.
This is the realm of the mystics,
of those who have a sense that the world is not fully revealed to us,
but who get glimpses of the ultimate reality that they struggle to put into words.
Meditation and silence are key elements of spiritual practice for those on this path.
This particular path merges the Intuitive ways of knowing the world
with decision-making based on Feeling, on the heart.

In our Unitarian history, the Journey of Harmony
flowered most profusely in the Transcendentalist movement.
When you read the works of the Transcendentalists like Emerson or Parker,
you struggle to understand what they are saying,
because they struggled to find words for their newly felt experiences of the divine. Everything is connected, god inside us and all around us, knowing oneself,
these were all difficult concepts that to some degree have to be lived to be understood. And we live them through turning inward.

(Move to center of space)
So I want to ask you to choose:
which of these paths best fits your own personal spiritual nature?
If you feel comfortable doing so, I’d like to ask you to stand and remain standing,
as I call out these paths. (Hold up the objects as the types are named)
Let’s start with Journey of Unity, seeking the answers?
Journey of Works, getting things done?
How about Journey of Devotion, who love ritual?
Journey of Harmony, lovers of mystery?
Look around!

(Return to lectern)
If some of you struggled to choose just one path, that's good!
I think a well-developed spiritual life should draw practice from each of these paths.
I know that for me, the Journey of Harmony is most natural path.
I find daily meditation an easy practice.
But I try to engage the other paths, through reading, improv movement,
and working in stained glass.
Perhaps you might want to explore what spiritual practices might broaden your horizons.

COMMUNITY
Now that we understand a little more about our individual spiritual journeys,
how can we apply them to our communal worship life?
A congregation develops a spiritual “style” just as surely as individuals do.
Our worship may emphasize great preaching,
or maybe well executed drama or ritual,
or silence and meditative music.
But we should also ask, is there enough balance for everyone?

I recently read an article about a man who finally understood his discontent
with his long-time family church -- he was of one spiritual type
and the church was strongly opposite that type.
His longtime family ties kept him at that church,
but he understood that he needed to fill some of his spiritual needs in other ways.

Once a congregation understands its own worship style,
it can make changes in its style to better provide for people on the other paths.
Changes to the typical order of the Sunday morning worship,
or to the music program, might be called for.
Or, maybe separate worship groups, like meditation groups
or small group ministries, or discussion forums are needed.

We explored such a change briefly today,
by modifying the joys and sorrows slightly.
We added a simple body movement,
a small communal ritual.
How did that make you feel?
Even small experiments like that can reveal much.

REINTEGRATION
This little exercise we did today
– when you stood up as I named the four Journeys –
brings up deeper issues around identity and belonging.
I'm sure you were curious when your friends stood up!
By more or less artificially segmenting ourselves into these four categories,
we create new identities and labels for ourselves.
Such labeling can be helpful if it serves
to deepen our understanding of one another and ourselves.
Such identities are valuable if they urge us to greater wholeness and balance,
and if they instill a greater compassion for those who are different from us.
Ultimately, if we do that compassionate work,
we find we can put the labels aside,
and see that our identities are less important than realizing that
we are all on the same journey.

In that ancient Hindu text, the Bhagavad-Gita, chapter 12,
the human protagonist Arjuna questions the god Krishna
about achieving enlightenment and eternal life,
and asks, 'which way is swift and sure, love or knowledge?'.
Krishna answers in much detail, finally noting in chapter 13:

Some by the path of meditation,
and by the grace of the spirit,
see the spirit in themselves;

some by the path of the vision of truth,
and others by the path of work.

And yet there are others who do not know,
but hear from others and adore.

They also cross beyond death,
because of their devotion to words of the truth.

And we see that all of these spiritual journeys
lead to the same unknowable and mysterious end.
May we be cognizant of this truth
both in our individual spiritual lives
as we live together in this gathered community.

Picture from UU Congregation Eau Claire.

Chaplincy Residency: The First Week

I've just completed the first week of Chaplaincy Residency at United Hospital in St. Paul. It's been maybe a category II hurricane of change for me, windy, calm, then windy again, and maybe (just maybe) the promise of blue sky ahead, or other weather on the way. Most of the gusts this week were due to outside events, such as the Republican National Convention, which delayed the residency start date and complicated many new employee procedures. But now there are five of us working together as resident chaplains for this 450 bed hospital.

It's an exciting group of residents, with folks from a variety of religious backgrounds: Catholic, Presbyterian, and Buddhist. I feel less like an outlier in this group than in the larger group of my previous CPE experience, where all were Protestant. The group dynamics are promising too. The group is willing to work together to solve problems and sort out things. An example: we had to decide who was going to staff the various units. This resolved very quickly and creatively, as we each got what we wanted, or more wisely, what we resisted.

In my case, I struggled with counseling and supporting people dealing with mental illness in my parish internship, and wonder if I avoided truly engaging in that work. Yet there was a call to this, a sense I needed to go deeper in this. I volunteered to take the Psychotherapy area, along with Neuroscience, which is mostly involved in treatment of epilepsy. Since no one else desired or needed these areas, the choice seems right on multiple levels.

Photo: United Hospital, Allina.com

Blue Mountain Meditation Retreat

In late August, I attended a regional retreat of the Blue Mountain Center for Meditation at Cabrini Shrine outside of Denver. I've been practicing passage meditation and following the Eight Point Program of Eknath Easwaran for nearly ten years now. (Slowing Down is the third of these Eight Points.) This retreat was as much an excuse to see old friends in the Golden meditation group as it was to refresh and deepen my practice.

The theme of the retreat was renewal, and much of the focus was on getting out of 'doldrums', periods in which our meditation (or any spiritual practice, for that matter) seems flat and unfulfilling. We explored ways to rejuvenate our practice, such as identifying and eliminating bad habits (I notice that I unconsciously shift my feet during meditation, for example), ways to choose and deepen our relationship with the passages we use for meditation, and strategies for using time set aside for specifically for renewal. I found this to be an appealing concept - periodically, I do need to reflect on my practice, and more often than at an annual retreat.

I thought the idea of renewal also spoke to changes with the Blue Mountain Center. Easwaran died before I began this practice, so I never met him. My sense is that his unexpected death meant that the organization struggled for some time, first just to survive, then sort out leadership and direction. Easwaran did not want to create a religious organization in the eastern tradition, so he did not formally ordain other teachers. The organization is now affirming its identity under the leadership of Easwaran's wife Christine, and moving on an expanded mission, a time of renewal, with specific programming for youth and for elders and those confronting death. Even though I'm just an ordinary practitioner and occasional retreatant, I'm excited and hopeful about this new phase. The Eight Point Program has been valuable for me, and I want to see these teachings continue to be kept fresh and offered to others.

Taking a Fall

I've fallen behind here, as I've been with my elderly dad who fell last week, and spent the better part of a week in the hospital. He tripped, and landed right on his face on a sidewalk. The impact broke his maxilla, the roof of his mouth. My brother and I have been helping his wife during this time, both while he is in the hospital and returning home.

A few observations.
I've worked in a hospital (as a chaplain), and been a patient (just for one night, in college), but have never played the role of the family member, ever present, at the patient's side. This is tiring. Even if you are not doing anything, this is hard work. I'm amazed how worn out I have been, going home in the evening.

It's unusual to have men doing this work. The nurse asked today if there would be women home to help with my dad's care (beyond his wife). My brother and I were suspect. However, one of my dad's nurses was male.

My dad received great care. It's a truism that patients who have family around them get the attention that others don't get. I felt sorry for those patients who were laying in dark rooms alone.

Healthcare has changed, and not all for the bad. My dad's wife worked many years ago as a nurse. She noted that at that time, no one except doctors gave patients and visitors any information. Now, technicians will provide vital signs as they take the measurements, (often with interpretation: 'ooh, that's high'), and the nurse is happy to open and help interpret the patient's charts for me.

I'm grateful my dad had good care at this local hospital, and is under the care of a fantastic doctor, who fortunately is happy taking my dad's medicare payments. We continue to work to see he gets good care (see previous post), but a good doctor and hospital makes it much easier. Now if we could just figure out how to expand medicare (or a better model) out to every American...

Aging Parents

Last night over dinner with friends, our conversation turned to that all too common topic, how do we deal with the situations of our aging parents. We especially struggle as our parents lose their strength and mental ability. We wish they'd give up driving, but know that is unrealistic, if they are to live independently. We worry about their finances, and pray they will give us more oversight and control in these areas. We agonize over their relaxed attitudes about medications and therapies, even when these attitudes have led to 9-1-1 calls and hospital stays. Our attempts to engage paid caregivers or other resources are rebuffed as intrusive and extravagant.

It is especially hard for those of us live half a continent or more away from our parents. Too many around us assume that if we really cared, we'd move back close to our parents, or uproot our folks and drop them in some care facility near here. This is, I think, the universal fear of our elders.

To complicate all this are the varying expectations of our siblings, especially those who are acting as on-site caregivers, or have done this in the past. Who makes the hard decisions? How do we balance safety and security against independence and freedom? I'm beginning to think that question touches deeper concerns than our aging elders. What do you think?

Photo by RebelBlueAngel

Making Retreat with the Jesuits

This last weekend, I 'made' a silent retreat with some sixty men, almost all Catholic, at a the Demontreville Jesuit retreat center near St. Paul. Most of the folks in this crowd were spiritually intentional laypeople, some served as deacons in their parishes, many had attended this retreat once a year for more than twenty years. It was silent: other than a conversation with the retreat leader, I was silent from after dinner Thursday night to dinner Sunday night.

The retreat leader, Father Jim Flaherty, teaches philosophy at Marquette University. He's a grad of JSTB, the Jesuit school that's part of the Graduate Theological Union (which includes Starr King School); we connected in remembering our times in Berkeley.

For a person who grew up with little contact with Catholic rituals and traditions, the learning curve for me was quite steep! And I had to work overtime to translate theology, language and narrative into something that I could work with in my own UU context. These Jesuits know how to pray! Like many UU's, prayer has been an issue for me, and I've struggled to find its utility in my process-based theology. I want to see prayer as more than just 'talking to God', certainly more than 'telling God what to do' (I saw a lot of that in the south). The retreat offered a number of methods for introspection and contemplation, for getting out of the head and into the heart. I hope to explore how these connect with other practices I've encountered (Buddhist, Islamic) and my own passage meditation practice.

Shooting in Knoxville

My heart weeps for those involved in the tragedy at Tennessee Valley UU Church in Knoxville, TN. It turns out that half of the shooting victims were from another UU church, Westside UU, also in Knoxville. This is such a shocking and terrible event, and comes so soon after the murder-suicide in the Clearwater, Florida congregation last December, that one reels in the ramifications.

The UU Trauma Response Ministry is on site today, working with the children and members of the congregations. We are truly blessed to have such a team as part of our denominational ministry.

If there are bright spots in this tragedy, they are in the acts of courage and simple clear thinking that occurred in the moment. I understand one congregant stood to block the attack, and others subdued the shooter. I also understand the children were taken to the Presbyterian Church next door as a safe haven.

This is difficult for me to say, but I'll say it. I'm glad the perpetrator was subdued and taken into custody, and was unable to act on his plans of suicide either by his own hand or 'suicide by cop'. This form of pseudo-martyrdom must fade from acceptability by any segment of America. At the same time, in bringing him to justice, I hope we will be able to avoid the voyuerism that has surrounded so many other criminal cases, and learn what we can to discourage this kind of violence in the future.

I am marking my calendar, three or six months in the future, to check in on the folks in Tennessee, indirectly, to see what help they might need. Columbine and other tragedies teach us the same lesson: too much attention by the news media and everyone in the beginning, followed by no support in the months ahead, when the grief is most present.

Finally, the image of rosary beads above in not a mistake. It was part of the initial three image slideshow on Yahoo News that a friend noticed. She thought it was probably a stock 'religion section' photo grabbed quickly for the breaking story. But the picture is a reminder of all people of all faiths, and those of no faith, who offer their prayers and support in this hard time. We are all one.

Sermon at a Glance

Another blog author turned me on to Wordle, a fun 'word cloud toy', and I thought it would be useful as a tool to 'grok' a whole sermon (or other text) at a sort of superficial semantic level.
Here's a recent sermon of mine.
Just for comparison, take a look at something a little more impressive, say, Theodore Parker's Transient and Permanent in Christianity, of 1841.
Surprising how much meaning leaks through!

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."