Weeding, and Haunting, and Goats, Oh My! (CL)

Fall is in the air, and the crisp cool weather makes me want to get organized. There is something about this beautiful weather and the changing colors on the trees that inspire a clean desk, a tidy closet, and a freshly raked yard.

Other folks at UUCA have the same idea, and they want you to come celebrate the fall with a new UUCA tradition… an All Church Work Day. There is so much to do, to get the church ready for the winter. There will be yard cleanup and preparation of the grounds, cleaning the PlayScape area and painting the fence, tidying up the Memorial Garden, and doing some energy-saving measures on the Fahs House in preparation for the winter. Bring gloves, shovels, rakes, paint brushes, and other work supplies!

Don't miss this event…  This Saturday, October 27, from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., followed by lunch. Members of the UUCA Board of Trustees will be available to talk and listen to your concerns and your joys and vision for the future of UUCA. Special guests EcoGoats will be doing some weeding! Yep, you read that right! EcoGoats, a company that provides a small herd of goats to eat away weeds, is an environmentally sustainable method for reducing invasive plants, and they will be here at UUCA! These are not petting-zoo goats, but they'll be a sight to see… So bring your family! Family friendly activities and games for kids will also be available for our younger church friends.

To find out more, contact Sarah Scott.

The following week, in honor of Halloween, we'll be hosting our first-ever Trunk or Treat event at UUCA! Only slightly different from Trick or Treat, Trunk or Treat offers only treats, no tricks, out of the trunks of cars! Many neighborhoods have stopped celebrating Halloween, due to large crowds of over-age candy-seekers, or for safety or religious reasons. This is an excellent outreach opportunity to our community. Kids and families from our church, or from neighborhoods where trick-or-treating is not a safe or fun option, are welcome to join us for the festivities.

We are inviting people to park in the main parking lot, walk up the pathway to the Fahs House (decorated with spooky cobwebs, straw bales, and other fun materials), stroll through a family-friendly Haunted House in the lower level of the Fahs House, and then emerge onto the back parking lot for Trunk or Treating.  We need about 25 cars to pass out treats from decorated open-trunks. There will be games, face painting, and other fun activities. We hope this becomes an annual UUCA tradition of fun for all ages, within our church as well as an outreach opportunity to the larger community.

To find out more, contact Michelle Malta.

Hope to see you there!

-Rev. Christina

Conscious Learning (JC)

My life-partner, Joni, has a very interesting father.  His name is Bill.  Bill is a native of North Dakota, a former farmer and truck-stop restaurant owner.  What makes Bill interesting is he is one of the most curious people I've ever met.

On his last visit, it was early in the morning.  Joni and I could not find him.  He'd just arrived for breakfast.  Minutes later...  "Where did my dad go?" Joni wondered.  We looked and looked when suddenly I saw him.  He was back outside reading the newspaper on the trunk of my car while making his acquaintance with our neighbor.

When Bill came in he said, in his "Bill-ish" way of talking, "Well don't you know it, that fella is from North Dakota and, man, have you see his hydrangeas...?"  He went on and on... In the span of 15-minutes, curious Bill had found out more about our neighbor then we had over the last two years.

This is one of many stories of how Bill learns new things every day in his very whimsical, extroverted and "Bill-ish" way.  He is in his 70's now but his curiosity with people, places and things is always growing.  I believe this keeps Bill alive, active, healthy and whole.  His curiosity gives his life meaning and energizes his mind, body and spirit.  I believe his way of being is vital to longevity and spiritual health.

The fact is, we are curious beings created by an ever-expanding universe.  As it grows and expands, we too must grow and expand because we are it and it is us.  If we are not conscious of what we learn, if we are not willing to grow and evolve we are stifling our personal power and spiritual capacity as conscious beings.

Getting to know people, places and things in more depth in turn makes us more complex people and puts us more in touch with the Spirit of Life. You may not be an extrovert but you can still experiment with Bill's way of asking more questions and being more curious.  Instead of feeling miserable or bored - get curious! Dedicate the rest of your life to being a conscious learner - a student in the game of life - and I guarantee that you will live a fuller and more meaningful existence.

In the Spirit of curiosity,

Rev. John

PS:  Many of you know I was recently featured in the Washington Post - here is the link to the article:   washingtonpost.com/blogs

“Write the Vision, Make it Plain” (DG)

Vision

By Daniel Gregoire, Intern Minister

9 October 2012

...Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.  Habakkuk 2:2

Prophets and sages are constantly tasked with write down the things that they see and hear. It’s simply not enough to have the personal experience of a vision.  Having a prophetic mental picture of things to come, of fantastic new worlds or zombie apocalypses is one kind of thing—a miraculous thing. But to write it down is another, perhaps more important task.

Yet, is writing it down, “writing the vision”, enough?

 At least in the Jewish and Christian scriptures, we see people who are called out of their normal habits and places, sometimes even transported to wild and exotic locations to apprehend visions of the distant future, and then, somewhere in the middle of that experience (but, usually towards the end) they are reminded by a voice from on high, “Oh yeah, and, write this down!” It’s as if the act of seeing is just one part of the experience, but does not contain the whole thing.

There is a power in writing that extends far beyond the ink and paper. It seems to be able to move visions closer to reality.

You are going to hear a lot about vision this month. We have visions about the direction and places we want to see the congregation move towards. AWAKE ministries is a kind of vision that we are all excited about. And, there is the ongoing Stewardship Campaign, which is an expression of our commitment to supporting the many visions of the church. Just recently we were asked to attach our own individual “visions” to the giant “Vision Catchers” arrayed in the sanctuary. I took great pleasure in making those vision catchers before my recent trip to Boston.

 

We give life and substance to our visions by committing them to writing. Otherwise a vision is reduced to self-indulgence, a fantasy or even a delusion. We must share them with others, simply and plainly.

In fact, it is not even enough to share our visions by talking about them. The vision must also be plain enough so that a person could understand it while running. Can you imagine that? If you just told me your vision while I was running I could miss it. I would need to see it in writing, with the bigness and simplicity of a billboard sign. The letters would need to be huge, the font - very simple, sans serifs and perhaps the fewer letters, the better. Maybe we would have to write the vision and place it in a few locations?

“Write the vision, make it plain…” this text makes an undeniable claim on me, both as a minister and as a human being. It says to me that I must use all of the resources at my disposal: my mind, my mouth, my soul, and even my written words to testify. Through my writing I proclaim both the wonder of life as I see it and experience it, and I acknowledge the sufferings that are necessary and add meaning and depth to that precious life.

My vision has a lot to do with my faith in “Life”: creating and sustaining it, causing it to flourish in diverse forms and combinations- to the end that “All souls [all life] will grow into harmony with the divine”. That is a line from the covenant I affirmed every Sunday at my church in Brockton, Massachusetts and it was printed in the order of service.

How is it that writing makes things “real”?

I don’t know the exact mechanics behind it, but I would hazard a guess that writing is an act that somehow signals to the “universe” our growing capacity and readiness to participate in making the vision a reality. It moves us, and we move the vision further down the road. The author and teacher, Elizabeth Andrew in Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir describes writing as an opportunity to transform “…[a] longing into something of substance” and the chance to bind “…the inner world to the outer, satisfying [ones] desire to unite with creation.”

Writing the vision is an act of faith and deep confidence. How would we reveal our faith and confidence by writing? Would it be by writing a memoir (spiritual or otherwise)? Might we write poems, songs, or make entries in that journal we started sometime ago. (it’s been far too long since I last wrote in my journal)

Perhaps we could simply write an affirmation on a slip of paper “I am a spark of the divine” and tape it to the bathroom mirror. There are so many ways to “write the vision”; indeed, so many ways to confidently proclaim and create the reality of our aspirations.

In closing, I commend the song “The Vision” composed by Patrick Love; it is in the Gospel tradition of the African American Church, and it just one more way to communicate power of “writing the vision.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNWi6y4tEsc

Let me know what you write…

See you at church.

The Wife of Jesus

The Hollis Chair of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School holds special meaning for Unitarian Universalists.  The professorship is the first and oldest endowed position in the U.S. It began in 1721, back when HDS was understood to be Calvinist in its theology and direction.  But times changed and with the liberalizing of New England, the status quo was challenged.  In 1805, Henry Ware, Jr., a Unitarian, was elected to the Hollis Chair and from that point on HDS was considered Unitarian (today, it’s an interdenominational graduate school of theology from which many UUs graduate).  Needless to say, Ware’s promotion created quite the flurry of fury among the orthodoxy.  Today, the Hollis Chair is held by Karen Leigh King - the first woman to hold the office - an Episcopalian, who, like Ware, has caused quite a fuss and stir (maybe it comes with the job!).
On Tuesday, September 18 (2012), Dr. King presented a finding while attending an academic conference in Rome (of all places!).  You probably have read or heard about it: “She identified a small fragment of fourth-century papyrus that includes the words, ‘Jesus said to them, “‘My wife.’”  Another clause appears to say, “‘she will be able to be my disciple.’”  Uh-oh!  What next?  Now, before you go and get all Dan Brown on this (Brown is the author of the wildly popular The DaVinci Code which is based on a similar kind of revelation), step back, take a deep breath and finish this blog posting.
For me, this is really not about Jesus.  Though our theologies are quite different, I  understand (and if I were a Christian I would agree with) Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest who wrote a NY Times op-ed piece entitled “Mr. and Mrs. Jesus Christ?”  Martin’s bottom line is that King’s revelation will make little-to-no difference for his faith: “[Jesus’s] life, death and, most important, resurrection would still be valid.  Nor would I abandon my life of chastity, which is the way I’ve found to love many people freely and deeply.  If I make it to heaven and Jesus introduces me to his wife, I’ll be happy for him (and her).  But then I’ll track down Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who wrote so soon after the time of Jesus, and ask them why they left out something so important.”  Yes, track them down Father Martin, and then after the gospel authors confirm that they included Jesus’s wife (girl friend, partner or disciple), then track down the early church leadership - the church fathers - and ask them about their editing, censorship and oppression that shaped the message they wanted Christians to hear and experience.  In other words, it’s all about power (and this is where Dan Brown got it right).
There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that women had critical and integral roles in the shaping of the early church; they played important roles in the life of Jesus.  We know that there are other scriptures that were hidden; we know that in the copying (rewriting) of scriptures, they were edited; we know that the early church created a male dominated, misogynistic hierarchy.  That Jesus may have been married makes him more human and appealing to me and, more importantly, I feel, makes church fathers and their followers more suspect.
I’m proud to have our way of faith associated with the Hollis Chair of Divinity at HDS!  Those who have held the position (since Ware, there was another Unitarian Universalist) have been progressive and prophetic truth-tellers who are compelled to share their findings, beliefs and vision.  As we prepare for October's theme of vision, may we all do the same.
    Take care and see you soon,
       Fred

P.S. - Following Sunday's service, several asked me for my "introduction" to UUism.  For those who were not in church, here's the context: I was role-playing what I would say if I went door-to-door sharing our faith - as the Mormons do. "Hi, I'm Fred Muir.  I live here in Annapolis.  I’m a Unitarian Universalist and you may have never heard about us, but we are the religion claimed by five Presidents of the United States, five Nobel Laureates, an abundance of American writers, poets, activists and yes, even some heretics. We are a religion of open minds, loving hearts and helping hands.  I'd like to leave you a pamphlet that tells you more.  Have a great day!"