Friday, March 20, 2015

Responsibility for the formation of one's own conscience is a value that Roman Catholicism and Unitarian Universalism hold in common

From Commonweal Magazine, March 20, 2015, "Does Method Matter: Contraception and Catholic Identity" by Christopher C. Roberts, p.17

Catholics believe in the primacy of an “informed conscience,” but, in this case, I doubt the relevant information has been effectively conveyed

One normally has to seek out such information for oneself.

The ignorance of Catholics on this subject indicates a massive catechetical failure. 

As a Roman Catholic Unitarian Universalist I am gratified by the statements that Christoper Roberts makes in his article about the responsibility of Catholics to inform their own consciences. This teaching, so similar to the UU fourth principle, "the free and responsible search for truth and meaning," kept me in the RC fold much longer than I would have stayed had it not been for the Catholic support for the informed conscience. It is this respect for the responsible informing of one's own conscience that RC and UU have in common.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Pope Francis like John Paul II, and Benedict XVI have denounced the death penalty - pass the word

From Commonweal Magazine, March 20, 2015, "From Trastevere To Texas: Sant'Egidio's Campaign Against The Death Penalty" p. 15

In 2014 Francis followed John Paul II and Benedict XVI in denouncing the death penalty as a violation of civilized norms and our common humanity. It was the strongest statement against the death penalty the church has ever made.

Is the use of the death penalty against the first principle of UU, the inherent worth and dignity of every person? Should all UUs stand in solidarity with Pope Francis and the Catholic Church on this issue? If we remove the possibility of exoneration and redemption by killing a person what does that say about our faith? If Universalists believe in the unconditional love of God for all of God's creations no matter how heinous their behavior what does this belief call us to do when we are faced with atrocities?

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Why is Unitarian Universalism such a hard religion?

Rev. Richard Trudeau writes in his book, Universalism 101, on page 23:

"Abraham Lincoln, though very reserved about expressing his own religious views, once quoted, with apparent approval, an old Baptist who in Lincoln's youth had proclaimed at a public meeting: 'When I do good, I feel good. What I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion."

To which I would add Dr. Laura's observation that "Feeling good, and doing good, can sometimes be two entirely different things."

To which I would add that I have been doing some good things lately that I don't feel entirely good about like speaking up when I know that my views are not popular with the group I am speaking in front of. In fact, it came to my attention yesterday that some people called my views "vile" and it was asked that I be kicked out of the group, excommunicated if you will. I thought long and hard about my position and I still believe it is the right thing. What should I do?

We are coming up to that time of year when we commemorate the killing of Jesus. I am sure that did not feel good, at least physically, to Jesus and some of the witnesses I would guess were quite distressed, and yet to the Pharisees and the Romans I guess they felt good about it, relieved to be rid of the son of a bitch.

Also, I have been doing somethings recently that feel good like compulsively overeating, but which with my Type II diabetes is bad for me. So perhaps President Lincoln's quote of the "old Baptist" needs a deeper reading.

By the numbers, Unitarian Universalism is not a popular religious denomination. There are many reasons why the pundits give for this phenomenon, but I would guess that a major reason not often recognized and acknowledged is that it is too hard. It is a difficult religion to understand, to identify oneself with let alone practice.

Us UUs say that God is Love and Loves everyone and a deeper understanding of this means that we should strive to become better people to live up to this wonderful grace bestowed upon us. Why are we so mean to ourselves and each other when we believe that God loves everyone?

I'll tell you why. Because we allow our egos to block our awareness of Love's presence. When we take our own egos away or try to take other peoples' egos way we and they cry like two year olds and have a tantrum. Giving up the ego for heaven on earth is a high calling some would say impossible. Not me, I am a dreamer, like John Lennon, and I'm not the only one. Some day perhaps the rest of the world will join us and we will live together as one.

Amen! And so it goes...........................

Sunday, March 15, 2015

How not to preach

From "How Not To Preach" by Rev. John J. Conley in the 02/02/15 issue of America:
1. It’s all about you. Keep the sermon strictly autobiographical. Your congregation is dying to know all about your last vacation. There’s no need to discuss that pesky reading about Abraham and Isaac and the knife.
I recently heard a sermon about a priest’s socks. Father explained how difficult it is to keep pairs of socks together. He noted his preferred detergent for washing socks and the advantages of using a clothesline over a dryer. He said there was a controversy over whether priests should wear all-black socks or whether they could add stripes. (News to me.) We kept waiting for the spiritual punchline. Was the lost sock like the lost sheep in the parable of the Good Shepherd? It remained a mystery. The sermon concluded with the revelation that he found doing the laundry difficult at times.
On a darker note, I once heard a sermon in which the preacher discussed the problem of resentment. The theme matched the Gospel, which featured the apostles’ jealous squabbling among themselves. Warming to his subject, the preacher described his own resentment against his brother (the prize-winning athlete), his sixth-grade teacher (too critical) and then his dear mother (too distant). As we cringed into our missalettes, I wondered if Doctor Phil would rush from the sacristy to take over the bathos in the sanctuary.
You were not ordained to tell your own story. You were ordained to proclaim someone else’s.
I would add that there is no need for a travelogue. 
At one UU church I attended for a few years one of the regular pulpit fills traveled about 35 miles to the church and would begin every sermon with a description of the scenery she observed while driving: the shape of the clouds, the geese she saw flying, the color of the leaves on the trees, the rain, snow, sunshine. I used to wonder what is the stipend you are receiving for this? Did you forget that we all drove here too and saw the same stuff? I mean connecting with nature is nice but I can get better on the National Geographic Channel. I suppose if it was just once, or done to make a point, but every sermon started with her travel report. I stopped attending the services when she was preaching. She was a nice person and meant well but must have skipped or slept through Homilectics 101.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

How to build a church so they will come

From UU World, Fall, 2014, "Ready For Change" by Elaine McArdle

McArdle describes the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder, CO:

Founded by a young mother in 1947 as the American Unitarian Association’s first fellowship, the church had more recently developed a quitting culture, where disgruntled members would leave rather than staying and working through conflict. By the mid-2000s, with no money in the coffers and a couple of bad matches between ministers and congregation, the church was on life support. “Oh, we were in trouble,” says Skiendzielewski.

I was struck by this paragraph because they is exactly what happened in my church. As a former Roman Catholic I was surprised at the lack of commitment to the denomination of UU. Attachment to any identity as a UU seems superficial and ephemeral. I found more loyalty at Rotary than I have found in UU.

While our statement of seven principles begins with the preamble, "... covenant to affirm and promote..." I don't see the covenanting. It is just a slogan, there is no investment in living a life based on these principles and helping others. It is surprisingly easy for supposed UUs to just walk away.

The attempts at times to provide "conflict resolution services" by district staff is little more than psychobabble from what I've seen. In the two different congregations where I have been involved in these attempts to stem the defections, there was no mention of the importance and meaning of the covenanting which we supposedly committed ourselves to let alone the importance of holding ourselves accountable to the principles. The attention of the facilitator seemed to be on process and not on content and while process is important it is not enough to bind together a faith community which is, afterall, what religion is about. The word "religion" comes from the latin word religare which means to tie, to bind.

As you undoubtedly have noticed, the title of this blog is "UU A Way Of Life" which implies a deep commitment to UU values. While a member can believe what he/she wants, we have covenanted together to promote and affirm our 7 principles. The catechesis explaining this covenanting process is nonexistent or very weak.

McErdle's article goes on to describe how the congregation set some goals and then hired Rev. Howell Lind to come and provide the leadership to hold the congregation accountable. However, reading between the lines, it seems he did more than that. He provided religious leadership and they transformed from a social club to a religious community.

“My experience as a field staffer for the UUA helped, in that I’d seen a variety of congregations—those with bad practices and those with good—so I had learned what works,” said Lind, who is married to Bowen. “Ministry to spiritual needs is more than just pastoral; it also means knowing how to build a community. It’s having a sense of how to motivate a congregation to move the way it wants to. I think the Developmental Ministry program is an excellent way to do that.”

It’s important to note that the goals were set by the board, not by Lind, creating shared leadership. And because the minister contracts with the board for five years, it gives them incentive to make the relationship work. “That’s significant, because it means the board is in the game no matter what,” said Wheeless. “It allows some buy-in and commitment [from the board] even if the congregation starts being concerned about changes.”

As soon as Lind arrived, his every step was strategic, to help the congregation reach its goals, including the shedding of its image as a social club.

“The first Sunday Howell stepped into the pulpit, he wore his robe,” recalled Richards. “He wears it every Sunday he’s preaching. It sets the stage—it says that this is a place of worship and that we belong to a larger association than ourselves.”

Lind moved the minister’s office from a secluded area in the back of the building to the front, signaling access, visibility, and transparency. He then persuaded the congregation to fix its run-down building: first, a new front door, then carpet and paint.

This is an inspiring story and you can read it for yourself by clicking here.

Friday, March 13, 2015

UU & ACIM - Who am I to know what is best for the universe?

The fifth principle of miracles is:

“Miracles are habits, and should be involuntary. They should not be under conscious control. Consciously selected miracles can be misguided.”

This is another hard principle to understand if you do not understand the philosophical framework of  ACIM. Miracles are a way of thinking and a matter of intention not forms or specific behavior. Are you loving are not? When you are loving, miracles happen without your knowing it. To live and act in a loving way becomes natural after a while. It takes great training and discipline but after practice it happens without thinking. It is like learning to play the piano or ice skate. At first it takes great effort and seems very awkward and maybe even impossible, but with ongoing effort and practice we become more proficient and it just comes naturally. Miracle thinking where we seek to do the will of God and not gratify our own ego inclinations and desires takes determination, persistence, and practice and then gradually becomes natural and we do it without be consciously aware.

Miracles, as ACIM uses the term, is not magic. They are not manipulation, they are born of loving intention to allow God’s will to extend itself to the situation and people we interact with. We have choice to react or to respond. Reacting is when we get our buttons pushed and our bodies are triggered. Responding is a conscious, thoughtful, deliberate and purposeful action governed by turning it over to our Higher Power or in the terms ACIM, the Holy Spirit. In AA the second step is turning our lives over to our Higher Power and this is what this fifth principle is describing. We have turned our lives over to the Holy Spirit to use as a conduit of God’s loving grace. This most often happens when we are forgiving. It is a humbling experience for us to forgive ourselves are escapades into egoistic drama, and to forgive other people for the imagined injustices and hurts we perceive them to have perpetrated on our bodies and our pride.

Unitarian Universalism asks us to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. When we intentionally do this with love for ourselves and others we are working miracles, and ACIM is telling us that this intention and action should be habitual and not under our conscious control because we trust in our Higher Power, the Spirit of Life to guide us because our HP and SL knows best. When we try to guide and pick and chose miracles we are in danger of becoming judgmental and projecting our own desires, resentments, drama onto other people. ACIM teaches that we can’t work miracles by ourselves because of our egos it is too easy to make mistakes. It is better to turn ourselves over to our HP and SL for guidance. This is easier to do when we remind ourselves of the seventh UU principle which is that we are just a part of the interdependent web of all existence and who am I to think that I know what is best for the universe?

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Second principle practice - American gulag part one

From "Captive Market" by Michael Ames in the February, 2015 issue of Harper's Magazine:

The United States currently holds about 2.3 million men, women, and children inside secure concrete and metal boxes from which they will almost certainly not escape. 

Our nation is exceptional in this way, with incarceration rates that far surpass those in Russia, Iran, or any other country on earth. 

One in twenty-eight American children has a parent in jail. African Americans have for decades been arrested for narcotics at more than three times the rate of white Americans, despite using drugs at roughly the same rate. 

There are more black men in the prison system right now then there were male slaves in the antebellum South. 

Counting parolees and probationers, the corrections system controls the lives of nearly 7 million people. Half of all federal inmates are in prison for drug offenses, and post-9/11 immigration roundups have provided a new human- inventory stream. Between 2001 and 2011, the number of detainees held each year by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) more than doubled—from
209,000 to at least 429,000—making foreign migrants one of the largest demographics in federal custody.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote 7 principles and values. The second principle is "Justice, Equity, and Compassion in Human Relations" There is a huge values gap between what we, as Americans say we believe in and value, and our practices what we actually do. How can be close this values gap and bring our values more into alignment with espoused values.
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