Why I Dance - CL

I grew up in a musical family. 

My father played in a band and was a member of the Air Force traveling show  "Tops in Blue" early in his career. My brother played multiple instruments, and enjoys songwriting and producing even today. I loved the fact that music was often being played in our home. Whether it was my dad on the guitar, my brother on the trumpet or piano, or my mom feigning opera, there was a lot of music around. I took piano lessons for a few years in elementary school and I never connected to the act of playing music. I considered joining the orchestra in middle school, but was more attracted to theater and speech. I considered myself, for most of my life, "not musical."

I realized in the past several years, however, that I am indeed "musical." My connection to music comes through movement… through dance. I am not drawn to playing or singing music. Rather, I connect to rhythm, melody, and harmony through dance. I simply cannot sit still when hearing good music! If you've seen in me in Sunday Services, I struggle to stand and sing without tapping my feet, clapping my hands, bobbing my head, or swaying my hips. I feel music more than I hear it.

I took years of dance training, including ballet, modern dance, jazz, and even hip-hop in graduate school. But I am not what you would call a "good dancer." Not in the traditional sense of the word. I'm never in the front row while performing. I'm not particularly graceful. But I love the feeling of allowing my body to do what it wants when the rhythm strikes.

I learned to let go of my preconceived notions about dance and movement in college, when I took a Dancehall Jazz class. The class was taught by a man from Jamaica, and we mostly danced to songs by Beyonce'. He would work and work with us to learn the steps, then he would tell us to "forget everything and just feel it". 

 At the time of that class, I was struggling in my life. I was battling an eating disorder, anorexia, which had twisted my mind and made me believe my body was an enemy. I thought I should control my body, and take up less space. But Marlon, my teacher, helped me learn to trust my body, to work with it rather than against it, and to listen to my body's needs and wants, and not just my mind's. He taught me to take up more space. "Bigger movements!" he would shout. "Bigger hips!" "Bigger eyes!" …And with that, I was on the beginning of a journey of integrating my head, my heart, and my body. My arms, my legs, my torso, my bottom, my feet, and joints… All of these parts together made me whole. 

I am glad that particular struggle in my life is past. But I know I still struggle, as I know many of you do, with body-acceptance. We are taught to be thinner, or stronger, or taller, or faster, or louder, or quieter. We worry about our noses, and our hair, and our freckles, and our skin tone. Dance, for me, is one way to remind us that our bodies are good. We should care for our bodies, feed them well, allow them rest, and listen to their needs. We should also be grateful for our bodies. My best friend Jenn, who died four years ago from Muscular Dystrophy, was wheelchair-bound and very limited in her movements. But she was an excellent dancer. The joy she radiated when she bobbed her head, moved her hands, and allowed her friends to spin her in her chair, is what made her a good dancer. We only get one body. Let's make the most of it!

Betsy Kraning, our UUCA Music Director, loves to say "anyone who can talk, can sing." I love to say, "anyone who can move, can dance."  It is a natural thing. 

Look at this video of these tiny babies dancing to their father's music: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to7uIG8KYhg

This is why I am hoping you will come out to the 1st Annual "Dancing on the Side of Love" dance on Saturday, February 9, from 5-8:00pm. We'll provide heavy snacks and non-alcoholic drinks and great tunes from all generations to get people of all ages dancing together. Most of the songs will be free-dance (like you remember from your school days). But from time-to-time we'll introduce a song with a particular dance. Think: Hokey Pokey, Hand Jive, Electric Slide, The Twist, Soulja Boy, or Gangnam Style.  We'll invite people who know the dance, to teach it. And if you don't know it, to try to learn it!

This dance will be an exercise in Beloved Community. We will be working together to learn from one another, as well as being willing to try new experiences, and possibly mess up! But then we'll try again, and help each other out. It's all in good fun, and a way to have fun with your UUCA community.

If you want to see some brief snippets of the dances we might be trying, here's a funny video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg 

Dance can just be a fun way of connecting to music, and connecting to community. 

I hope you'll join us!

Blessings...   -Rev. Christina

Law of Attraction (JC)

The Buddha said, "What you have become is the result of what you have thought".   There is power in belief.  How do we begin to believe in the things that will attract the right kind of people, places and things into our lives?  We make a decision!  It’s time in 2013 to make a decision on how you want to feel.

In recent years there have been numerous books and discussions around the idea that people attract what they desire whether positive or negative.  It’s been called the “Law of Attraction”.  Esther Hicks, one of the pioneers of the Law of Attraction says: “You are a creator; you create with your every thought.”   

 

Wikipedia says that “attraction is when  …people experience the corresponding manifestations of their predominant thoughts, feelings, words, and actions.”  This is basically saying that we have direct control over reality through thought alone.”   That is, a person's thoughts (conscious and unconscious), emotions, beliefs and actions are said to attract corresponding positive and negative experiences.   I get that—do you?  Good.

But I caution you…  Look at the Law of Attraction and understand that it has some merits and flaws.

The idea of ATTRACTION was born during The Great Depression through a guy by the name of Napoleon Hill who wrote the book Think and Grow Rich.  It’s a good read.  In fact, at the time of Hill’s death the book had sold over $70-million copies.  His bestseller book made the ideas of attraction popular and over time led to the development of what we know today as the “Law of Attraction”.   Incidentally, my favorite chapter in Think and Grow Rich is titled “Sex Transmutation—why most men don’t succeed until after 40.” 

CHAPTER 11 THE MYSTERY OF SEX TRANSMUTATION The Tenth Step toward Riches

 You have to be smart with the idea of attraction. It works for the individual but should never become a social or moral philosophy.  Simply ask yourself this:  Do people in Third World countries living under ruthless dictators attract those circumstances?  Do the innocent civilians in Afghanistan attract the bombs and mortar fire they experience every day and night?  

     

 Does 2/3 of the world that is poor attract their poverty and disease? Or more personally, do kids in a classroom attract some psycho-path killer—OF COURSE NOT!   
We have to be careful here… 

I am a believer in some aspects of the Law of Attraction but we have to understand it contextually.  In fact, it is clear to me that the Law of Attraction, as it is presently taught, is a First World philosophy most effectively applied in democratic and European countries. This philosophy is most applicable for those among us who are privileged.

Now with my disclaimer’s out of the way let’s look at what the Buddha said once again:  "What you have become is the result of what you have thought".   

Think about that for yourself the individual.  It’s true. 

There are many opportunities in our lives when we attract the very thing we wanted.  It’s magical!  When we really want something our minds and bodies place us where we can experience that something, for better or for worse.  We put our intention out and it comes back fulfilled.  We literally move toward what we want and want we want magically moves toward us.  As they say “Be careful of what you ask for”.

I challenge you to try again and ask for what you want. Pray and meditate daily, commune with nature, practice being more open, real, honest, transparent, intimate, joyful, blissful, happy, and thankful and what you ask for will be answered.

For 2013 I want you to trust your connection to Spirit—to all things.  Allow your mind to be open to new and refreshing thoughts and I promise you that you will watch amazing things happen!  But remember you first must believe.  

 

Words from Neil Donald Walsch add a fitting close to this blog:  “Little by little, what changed WAS my perception of what was happening... As soon as my perception shifted, I began to see a shift as well in my experience of life...”  

Blessings!

Rev. John
 

Peacebots and Other Arcane Devices

Peacebots and Other Arcane Devices - DG

Greetings from Brooklyn! I intended to write a more ambitious, anachronistically stylized entry involving the late-Victorian misadventures of certain Dr. Horatio Danville Gregoire this week, but decided to pare it down a bit, and focus on my reflection on mass media and Peace our theme for the month.                

When I consider the ways that violence seems to surround us in the present day, it can feel like drowning in a relentless sea of the stuff. There is violence in all the media we consume, and it comes as an endless stream of destruction, hurt, separations and sorrow, much of it wasteful and unnecessary. I think that the media also consumes us in a way, constantly chipping away, perhaps dissolving bits and pieces of our worth and dignity. What can we do to stay afloat and retain our integrity?

This line of thinking occurred to me most distressingly as I sat through a recent screening of Django – Unchained with friends in New York City. Peace seems ever-fleeting, on a horizon we can’t ever get to; while, violence is the ever present star of the show.

My friends and I had various responses to the overlong, derivative (a ’la 1970s era Blaxploitation genre) and anachronistic film, ranging from disgust to delight. Django was probably meant to be many things for the viewing audience, and I would hazard a guess that none of those things had to do with historical accuracy, racial empowerment or physiological realism. So, it is hardly fair to judge the film on those accounts. And, I won’t.

What impressed me most had little to do with the film itself and more to do with my response to it. I was proud that I was disgusted by the film, and, more importantly proud that I have retained the ability to be disgusted by the absurdity of heroic violence, no matter how it is cleverly disguised. I was not amused, or jaded or even morbidly curious (which I imagine is the desired response of media elites) but fundamentally revolted. (Hooray for humanity!)

It is increasingly evident to me, and perhaps you have been seeing it too—that there is a concerted effort underway to eliminate our sensitivity to violence. I believe that the de-sensitization project is an ancient enterprise beginning in the earliest settled, agricultural societies, but has it has accelerated with the proliferation of lightweight, portable gadgets that do everything short of beaming the violent imagery directly into our neo-cortex (although, I am sure the folks at Google and Amazon [perhaps Facebook] are working on just such a sub-cranial device as I write this entry). This civilizational program of desensitization has worked for some people, and its effectiveness is evident in the responses to the super saturation of violence in film, print and electronic media. I think violence does breed more violence or the equally deadly apathy to violence.

Media elites are turning violence into a commonplace place thing that can unite friends, family and neighbors bringing them together in the warm glow of destruction, as entertainment. People yawn, dismiss it, ignore it, cheer it or laugh about! But, in all cases they are glued to their plush theater seats.

And, I am complicit in this vicious (sticky) project, we all are. I did buy a ticket to the film after all. If you haven’t seen the film, perhaps you will now wait for it to come out on Netflix and stream it into your home soon. I am not advising against doing that.

What is your response to the constant stream of easy to access violence? I hope it is never helplessness? I hope we don’t ever throw our hands in the air with frustration. (Heavens forefend!)

I hope we can join together in re-making ourselves and our communities, as Sites of Resistance, to use a term that pops up in liberation theology. That means becoming a place where we can voice our feelings of disgust and our sense of revolt to the violence, and develop plans of action to change the world, or at least change ourselves. I might remake myself into a person of resistance after seeing Django—Unchained, by researching stories of actual slave revolts, including the only successful one that occurred in my ancestral homeland –Haiti. I might continue my reading of the Battle Cry for Freedom by James McPherson. I might also continue to engage in compassion meditation and encourage others to do the same. Do something, don’t just sit there.

Resist! Desensitization every day and become an instrument for peace, a peacebot.

[With robotic voice-repeat]  I am a Peacebot—over.

Warning this is Not a Peacebot - but you get the idea.

The Common Good

You don’t know the half of it, like the old folks used to say

but the half of it is what I do know
What I don’t know is the other

-   Lucille Clifton, “God Bless America”

 

As 2013 drew closer, reminders of the year(s) past were everywhere.  Among the well-rehearsed stories brought to our attention was one which, yet again, described the complexities of the U.S. population – not only is it changing, but now changing more rapidly and noticeably.  Pundits tell us that a glaring example of this change was seen in the unwillingness or inability of many political candidates to see and hear the needs, ideas and beliefs of their constituents.  Defeated candidates were - it’s been said - out of touch with the future of America; their message was shaped by and to voters that are or will be in the minority, an America of the past.  “Past” and “future” are defined by beliefs, values, ethnicity and so many ways of defining and distinguishing 2012 citizens from our nation’s demographic history.

    What we learned in the year past is not new, our country has seen this coming from centuries.  This, in Lucille Clifton’s words, is “but the half of it [we] do know.”  We are a diverse people, this is something our country has always been.  While diversity has been part of the U.S. for hundreds of years, it has finally reached a place where it can no longer be ignored or dismissed as of little or no consequence (which is easy to do from places of power or isolation).  We, as a nation, I believe, must now recognize that there are consequences to the depth of diversity that is (and always has been) our nation.  We need to say more than " We are all Americans."  Yes we may be, and there is so much more to say and do.

    Let me reiterate: We have always been a diverse nation.  Diversity is part of who we are as the United States.  As our diversity has grown, the differences have become striking and shaping.  In recent decades, these differences have accelerated and many - including disappointed candidates and their supporters - were lost in the gap between a distant past and an emerging future.  And now we are long overdue in becoming collectively intentional about focusing our attention and direction on our diversity.  This is called pluralism: while diversity happens (after all, the human race is diverse), pluralism - learning to live with (and celebrate) diversity – is intentional.  Right now, it seems to me, we are struggling with being intentional.  My sense is that individuals and institutions (including Unitarian Universalism) are all struggling with what it means not only to be diverse, but how to embrace and welcome pluralism.

    Pluralism assumes an appreciation and desire for individuality, but not individualism; life in the U.S. for the 21^st century will be about more than individual freedoms, freedoms often described as “rights.”  Some describe these freedoms and rights as though they are intrinsic to being human, but many/most of them are not.  Most of these freedoms and rights are found in laws and proclamations that were created by us, in a particular time and space, and they can be tempered or even removed when necessary.  It seems to me that the biggest challenge our nation and its institutions face is how to support the common good, which may or may not support individual rights to which we have grown accustomed.  Might it be that the belief in individual rights is rooted in diversity where the common good grows from pluralism?  If this question is an important one to answer, then it begs an additional one: What rights are you willing to moderate or relinquish in order to deepen the common good?  It is my hope that these are questions we can address together in 2013.
    Take care and see you soon,

            Fred