Filed under: Becoming and Being Part of a UU Congregation, Church Finances and Stewardship, Stewardship & Finances, Trends in Religion, UU Denomination and Pacific Central District News and Views | Tags: church administration, church culture, church mangement, congregational polity, senior minister, UU structures
Gossip travels faster than facts.
During the conversations on voting to call me as a settled minister at my church, a couple of members said they heard that I planned to give only 4 hours a week to my role as manager of office staff and general administration. They expressed skepticism that this was enough time. So do I!
I’m not sure where this came from–not from me. I don’t keep a time sheet for my 45-65 hours a week. Moreover, my work is not divisible into rigidly separate categories like ministry, business, finances, fund raising, scholarship, reflection, listening, training, coaching, writing, analyzing…. But I am quite busy and invested in the ministry of administration!
Since the unexpected departure of our former administrator in early June, I’ve been working several hours a week on matters that touch on administration, including staff recruitment, consultation, supervision and support. I came back early from a July vacation to help staff regroup and to lead the search for a temporary, 3/4 time consulting administrator.
Clergy colleagues was a Master of Divinity are prone to complain about the many things we find in our jobs that “they didn’t teach us in seminary.” Sure, but I also have an Master of Business Administration in finance and accounting, and there are plenty of things “they didn’t teach us in business school.” Ministry is one of the few non-specialist positions remaining. It’s generalist aspects are why this work appeals to me.
Over 16 years in ministry I’ve learned the most about management from patient coaching by folks from the corporate world, not-for-profit sector, and church leadership. In 10 years as a budget analyst, bond analyst, and social services administrator in the State of Illinois, I learned a lot from supervisors, colleagues, visionaries, vendors, and the consumers of our services.
Who and what are some of the people and places that you credit with giving you the skills and knowledge that have made you better at what you do? Comments below, please!
Filed under: Books (includes sermons based on books), Family Ministry, Inspiration, Sermon Archives and Excerpts, Trends in Religion | Tags: amyg, Arinna Weisman, conflict, covenant, family therapy, healthy congregations, meditaiton, mindfulness, non-violence, organizational consulting, peace, Peter Steinke, spiritual practice, systems theory
Sunday, March 18m 2012
Unitarian Universalist Society, Sacramento
Hymns: Wake Now, My Senses; Spirit of Life/Fuente de Amor; Blessed Spirit of My Life.
Prayer: by Harry Meserve
Singing the Living Tradition #496
From arrogance, pompousness, and from thinking ourselves more important than we are, may some saving sense of humor liberate us. For allowing ourselves to ridicule the faith of others, may we be forgiven. From making war and calling it peace, special privilege and calling it justice, indifference and calling it tolerance, pollution and calling it progress, may we be cured. From telling ourselves and others that evil is inevitable while good is impossible, may we stand corrected. God of our mixed up, tragic, aspiring, doubting, and insurgent lives, help us to be as good as in our hearts we have always wanted to be. Amen.
Sermon
Sometimes when I read an article about politics on a website, I scroll down and look at the reader comments. Big mistake! The lack of respectful conversation–or any true conversation–stuns me. Many who disagree with the writer or dislike the subject will say unfair things about the people involved or the writer. When their opinion is the opposite of mine, their hateful comments can make my blood boil. If their position is one I agree with, then a cheap shot will embarrass and dishearten me: “Wait, I’m on the same side of the issue, but I can’t bear to be associated with such mean-spirited people.” The back-and-forth attacks really upset me. And bad spelling makes it worse.
Yet I must confess, when I’m reading my email, if I feel impatient, hurt, misunderstood, or angry, I have an urge to fire off a righteous retort or a defensive blast. It’s so easy to vent by hitting the send button, and then regret it later. Of course, the internet didn’t give birth to potshots and hurtful or
hateful words, it only gives them a powerful platform, always at the ready.
We live in an age of anxiety and quick anger. It’s easy to take offense, and then hang on to it. Reactivity and righteousness spill over into all our relationships: family, friends, groups and organizations.
Even though it can be destructive, such behavior is based in our survival instincts. It comes from the ancient part of our brain—the reptilian part. The stimulus for survival takes place in a part of our head where brain activity is automatic. Consider: when a reptile sees another being, it does not ask, “Can I eat it?” or, “Will it eat me?” Its brain just reacts automatically. It does not reflect. From this reptile brain comes our so-called “fight or flight” response. There is no rationalizing, just an impulse. We have impulses of which we are not conscious.
Joseph LeDoux, a neuroscientist at New York University, writes: “Contrary to popular belief, conscious feelings are not required to produce emotional responses. [Our feelings] . . . involve unconscious processing mechanisms.”[i] These are primitive circuits, he says. Through evolution, they have been passed along to all mammals, including us.
Even so, what makes humans different from other animals is our ability to think about the future, assess alternatives, make plans. We can reflect on the consequences of our actions. Unless, of course, the reptile brain leads us to react, without reflecting first.
Yet it’s not always easy to reflect. The part of our brain known as the amygdala “can activate [our] arousal system,” if it senses danger, according to LeDoux. This can affect how our nervous system will process experiences in the future. The body’s responses to pain can affect the thinking parts of the brain. In other words, our mental and physical memory of painful events can lead us to react in fearful ways, even when there is no current threat. Panic disorders come to mind, as does post-traumatic stress. Things that objectively should not seem threatening can stimulate a given fear and generate a “fight or flight” reaction.
Few things annoy me more than to be told I am overreacting! However, I can see that a reaction out of proportion to a perceived harm or threat could be a habit of mine, or at least a habit of my nervous system. We can manage our habits for the better, or we can make habits worse.
Because I work and study in the field of religion, I’ve learned a lot about the damage done to congregations by people and groups who let their reptile brains lead their actions. Peter Steinke is a family therapist, Lutheran pastor, and organizational consultant. He studies and works with churches in painful conflicts, and this keeps him busy. At a workshop I attended some years ago, Steinke said, “Not only is church conflict a growth industry, it is getting meaner and nastier.”[ii] In just a few years, his work with congregations in distress had grown by 200%. In many conflicts, some people can be very mean. They do things to one another or say things about one another in contradiction to their stated religious principles.
But churches are not unique. All kinds of organizations have conflicts, some of them in violation of their stated principles and ethics. In corporations, clubs, charities and schools; in committed couples and in families, humans have disagreements and stress. It is part of being in relationship. What matters is how we manage ourselves in the midst of conflict, and how we settle our differences.
In Steinke’s view, most conflicts have to do with anxiety in the system.
Anxiety, of course, is normal. It is our longtime companion. Steinke said: If you don’t have some anxiety, you’ll never make any changes. Just as the pain felt when you touch a hot stove burner can make you pull your hand away, anxiety can serve you in good ways. For example, the anxiety of loneliness can provoke a person to search for a place of community, for friends, or for a partner. Problems in society can provoke the anxiety of sadness, frustration, or outrage. These feelings may lead a person to get involved in making a difference.
The word anxiety comes from a Latin word which means to strangle or choke. That describes the physical sensation of being in a state of high anxiety. And, just as we don’t get enough air if we’re being choked, if we’re highly anxious we have less ability to give attention to the options we can choose when facing a challenge. Anxiety can cloud our awareness the way muddy water clouds a pond. It can keep us from seeing clearly.
Steinke identified several triggers of anxiety in congregations. These triggers include the issues of theology, authority, music, money, leadership styles, worship styles, and staff changes. Anxiety in church life can be provoked by any change between something old and something new. Fast changes can be disconcerting, yet the slowness of change can be frustrating. Growth can trigger anxiety in churches, but so can numerical decline. Sexuality is a charged issue as well. Imagine all the anxiety in those denominations and churches still unresolved on the status of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender church members or the credentialing of gay ministers.
Issues having to do with property, buildings and space are also triggers for stress in a system. Steinke said this is understandable, for building issues are territory issues. Territory is a matter of survival for all animals, including us. Territory—maybe this is why moving is a big source of stress, as well as kitchen and bathroom renovations.
So it seems, a church is a minefield of human stressors—but so is any relationship of importance. In any setting, anxiety-triggers have to do with our sense belonging and safety, with identity and inclusion. We want to be connected to others in meaningful ways. At the same time, we want to assert our identity and be recognized as individuals. In human evolution, identity and belonging have been matters of protection and survival. Even if we can understand the origins of stress and conflict, this doesn’t make it hurt any less.
In all social institutions, Steinke said, there’s been a trend of conflicts with more secrecy, deceit, lying, and self-righteousness. Some groups not only want to get their way, they want to be seen as right. They not only want to be right, they want to punish the losers. I’ve been here for four years, and I think our congregation shows healthy habits, has good skills to engage in disagreement and to respond well in times of challenge and anxiety.
Yet in the country at large, we find ourselves in another big election year. Self-righteousness is on the rise, perhaps more than ever. On television, radio and the internet, all the shouting and interruptions, the attacks and accusations, appeal to the combativeness of our reptilian brain. Yet even as they excite us, they raise our anxiety. They don’t bring us together, they separate us.
In a family system or in an organizational one, anxiety can spread. It can be contagious. According to Peter Steinke, when a group experiences anxiety, there is “an automatic shift of attention and energy” away from reflection and into action. Under stress we are less clear about all the options available to us. The more a group feels the grip of its anxiety, the less available the group’s values will be for it to draw upon. This is often why people in organizations can commit acts that violate the group’s own ethical values. They do not respond, they react. Sometimes individuals, sometimes whole communities, just react.
However, anxiety is a normal emotion. Sometimes it can help us. The question is not how to repress it, but what to do about it when it emerges. If we recognize anxiety—and respect it—we might keep anxiety from ratcheting up, feeding on itself, tightening its grip.
There are steps we can take, as individuals or by group agreement. For example, I mentioned how tempting it is to put my anxiety into an email. For this reason, I try to avoid having important conversations by email. It’s too easy for my words to be taken in a way I did not intend, and easy for me to take another’s words wrong. If, as happens now and then, I decide I will write an email about an issue of some tension or confusion, I try to write a draft and save it for a day, to sleep on it before sending it. This practice lets me vent my feelings, and it lets me reflect. I may revise an email after sleeping on it. Or I may delete it, and pick up the telephone instead.
Steinke gives the same advice to families having troubles that he does to leaders of churches in conflict. This is to maintain clear boundaries between yourself and others. First, be aware that you need not own another’s anxiety, and need not take responsibility for it. Second, learn to recognize your own feelings of anxiety. Own your anxiety, but not that of others.
One way that families and groups avoid inflaming tensions is by the use of I-statements. For example, “I believe that…” is better than “Everybody agrees…” or “It’s clear for anyone to see that….”
In a stressful conversation or disagreement, Steinke advised, don’t label others or question their motives. Instead, say how you feel, where you are coming from, what your intentions are. Rather than make accusations about another’s motives, one can say, “I feel….” or “My intention is….” Rather than demanding, one can say, “I would like this…” or “I am making a request that….”
Rather than attacking another person for making a demand we don’t like, we can say “I am not able to do that,” or, if necessary, “I am not willing to do that….” The emphasis is on I and me, not on judging or labeling the other. By using I-statements, we assert our own needs and set our limits without raising the stakes by accusing others.
It’s good to remember that we have no control over what other people do or say; we have a choice only about what we do. In case of a verbal attack, it can be tempting to fire back a counter attack. Steinke suggested more “I statements,” such as “I feel as if I’m under attack and I don’t like it. I am not able to respond right now.” Sometimes when I’ve heard hurtful words—about someone else or directed right at me—I’ll say “Ouch!” That’s my I-statement.
Leaders can be lightening rods for anxiety—leaders of a country, or a congregation, or a family. For example, a parent is in a leadership role with children. It takes practice to keep from taking a child’s outburst personally, and to keep from reacting in ways that ratchet up the anxiety. In whatever setting you might provide leadership, it can hurt to be a lightening rod. Yet in moments of anxiety, the most important influence we can have on a group is the choice of our own words and behaviors.
We shouldn’t take responsibility for another’s anxiety, but we should accept our own. We can do this by being aware of our own feelings and experiences. No need to repress feelings. Not helpful to take them out on others. We can recognize our emotions without reacting. This calls for building our skills of self-awareness.
One way to do cultivate awareness is to sit quietly to be with our feelings, or go for a walk. The poet Wallace Stevens wrote: “Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.”
A meditation teacher of mine has compared the practice of mindfulness to waiting for muddy water in a pond to settle. The particles of mud ease to the bottom of the pond, and the water becomes clear. So can it be with our minds. This teacher has practiced mindfulness meditation for decades, yet even her mind can play tricks on her. For such an esteemed person, many of her habitual thoughts and feelings are less than flattering.
She admits that her mind and body go through reactions all the time. Everyone’s mind has its habitual thoughts, she says. Mine does. How about your mind? She says that her habitual thoughts and feelings include boredom, irritation, resentment, grief, and judgment. Funny, I thought those were my habits.
Even when going for a walk, or sitting calmly, watching the breath or eating a meal, her attention wanders. The attention jumps to habitual thoughts, especially those of self-blame or self-criticism. But when she notices the mind doing this, she tries to be kind about it. Rather than judging herself for habitual thinking, she just recognizes it. She nods and smiles and takes a breath.
In fact, she regards her habits of mind as her longtime companions, never to leave her. When irritation, self-blame, arrogance or any other unpleasant thought arises in her mind, she greets it: “Hello, judgmentalism, my old friend.” She does not try to fight it off, she just sees it and feels it.
“Ah, resentment there you are again. Welcome!”
“Ah, craving, here you are. Welcome back!”
“Hello, self-loathing, my old pal. I recognize you. I bow down to you.”
She does not fight the feeling. She allows it a moment in the spotlight, but then she lets it be. She gives it a bit of space in the corner of her awareness, but not the whole room.[iii]
I’ve tried her approach in my own practice—and haven’t often been successful. Yet by this stage in life, I am unlikely to discard all of my stubborn mental habits. Rather than despair, I’ll try to see my habitual thoughts and reactions as my longtime companions. They’re along for the journey, but not in charge of it.
Whatever feelings might arise, they are merely our companions; they need not be our drivers. Perhaps we can try to put this idea into practice. When anxiety that comes up—notice it, look at it, even smile at it. Take a breath.
It’s not necessary to do the first thing that any impulse tells us to do. Our anxiety may not have all the truth about a situation we’re in. Especially if it’s hot or strong, our anxiety may need us to take it for a walk around the lake.
Perhaps the practice of awareness is a way to peace—within ourselves, in our communities, in the world. We can aware of what we’re feeling. We can own our feelings and recognize the feelings of others. We can practice patience.
Let us keep a little place for the reptile in our heads. Let us give it good care. But a reptile shouldn’t run our lives. With courage and kindness, let us accept our emotional experiences, and notice our habits of mind. With courage and kindness, let us practice the ways of peace. May it be so. Amen, and blessed be.
[i] “Emotion Circuits in the Brain.” Joseph E. LeDoux. Annual Review of Neuroscience. 23:155–184 (2000). See http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.neuro.23.1.155?prevSearch=leDoux&searchHistoryKey=
[ii] Notes from attendance at a workshop and conversation with Peter Steinke, at Grace Lutheran Church, Palo Alto, CA, 2005. See his books at http://www.alban.org/bookdetails.aspx?id=2830. For consultant resources: http://www.healthycongregations.com/
[iii]Remembrances from a dharma talk by Arinna Weisman, at a retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Woodacre, CA, 2005. Her book is A Beginner’s Guide to Insight Meditation. Find her blog, videos, etc. at http://arinnaweisman.org/
Filed under: Adult Enrichment and Group Meetings, Trends in Religion | Tags: Religion debates
A church member put together this list of links to various lectures. We thought you might like to have it in one handy place.
| Thinking About Big Questions?
Here’s some serious thinking about where we are, and “What are we doing here, anyway?” Many hours of worthwhile video surfing on the Web. Trust me, it’s worth it. (Be sure to click on the little window icon at bottom right of the video frame, and video image will expand to fill the entire monitor screen. ESC key gets you back to regular windowed display.) Cheers, Christopher Hitchens & Dinesh D’Souza - Is Christianity The Problem? Christopher Hitchens & Dinesh D’Souza - What’s So Great About God?: Atheism vs Religion Christopher Hitchens & Dinesh D’Souza - The God Debate: Hitchens - YouTube Christopher Hitchens & Tony Blair - Debate: Is Religion A Force For Good In The World? - YouTube Dalai Lama, Buddha, et al - Kalachakra on Vimeo Dalai Lama - Pursuing Happiness - Vimeo October 17, 2010 – Emory University in Atlanta Georgia. Krista Tippett leads this invigorating and unpredictable public conversation on the subject of human happiness, exploring themes of suffering, beauty, and the nature of the body. Along with His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama, Lord Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth; the Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Bishop Jefferts Schori, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church; and Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr join him on stage in front of 4,000 attendees. How To Shut Up Pesky Creationists - YouTube Neil deGrasse Tyson - Intelligent Design is Stupid - YouTube Karen Armstrong - A History of God - YouTube Neil DeGrasse Tyson - Are you religious? (at BYU) - YouTube Neil DeGrasse Tyson - Intelligent Design, Not - YouTube Neil Degrasse Tyson - The Erosion of Progress by Religions - YouTube Neil DeGrasse Tyson - Answers a religious heckler - YouTube Richard Dawkins - 1 Original Jaw Dropper talk on our universe. pt.1/3 - YouTube Richard Dawkins - Dawkins Breaks a Man’s Heart - YouTube Richard Dawkins - debates William Lane Craig - YouTube Richard Dawkins - Growing Up in the Universe - YouTube Richard Dawkins - on Stephen Colbert show - YouTube Richard Dawkins - Richard Dawkins Vs The Quran - YouTube Richard Dawkins - The Best Richard Dawkins Moment Ever!!! - YouTube Richard Dawkins - The Enemies Of Reason - Episode 1 - Slaves to Superstition - YouTube Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion (Root of all Evil) - YouTube Richard Dawkins - The Greatest Show On Earth - YouTube Richard Dawkins & Neil deGrasse Tyson - The Poetry of Science: - YouTube Sean Faircloth - Atheism: A New Strategy. (Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science) Stephen Hawking - Does God Exist? - YouTube Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan & Arthur C. Clarke - God, The Universe and Everything Else - YouTube |
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Filed under: Becoming and Being Part of a UU Congregation, Church Finances and Stewardship, Religious Studies: History, Sermon Archives and Excerpts, Trends in Religion, UU Denomination and Pacific Central District News and Views | Tags: congregational history, liberal Christianity, liberal religion, religious humanist
Unitarian Universalist Society
Sacramento, CA
Hymns:
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing; Come, Sing a Song with Me;
For the Earth Forever Turning. Vocal music: Bright Morning Stars, duet by Eric and Emily
Prayer
The banners around the top of our sanctuary were created by artists and craftspersons in the congregation in 1982, near the conclusion of Theodore Webb’s ministry here. He served this congregation as minister from 1971 to 1983, and attends now as Minister Emeritus. These words of prayer, written by Ted, were published in a Meditation Manual by our denomination(1984), in which all the poems and prayers came from people of a Universalist heritage—those who had been Universalists prior to the Unitarian and Universalist merger of 1961.
(Read prayer page 45 from To Meet the Asking Years).
Reading
In Sacramento, the first public expressions of Unitarian theology in Sacramento took the form of public lectures in 1858 and 1860. In particular, on May 31 and June 6 of 1860, Thomas Star King came over from San Francisco to give lectures to benefit the Sacramento Library Association. A Universalist minister in Boston, Starr King had been called in 1860 to serve the Unitarian Church in the City, our first one on the West Coast. His preaching and political activism are credited with keeping California in the Union. His fundraising on the coast provided 1.25 million dollars during the Civil War for the founding of a national Sanitary Commission, which later became the Red Cross. This is from his May 31 lecture, “Substance and Show”:
[A] life-spirit inhabits every flower and shrub, and protects it against the prowling forces of destruction.
Look at a full-sized oak, the rooted Leviathan of the fields. Judging by your senses and by the scales, you would say that the substance of the noble tree was its bulk of bark and bough and branch and leaves and sap, the cords of woody and moist matter that compose it and make it heavy.
But really its substance is that which makes it an oak, that which weaves its bark and glues it to the stem, and wraps its rings of fresh wood around the trunk every year, and pushes out its boughs and clothes its twigs with digestive leaves and sucks up nutriment from the soil continually, and makes the roots clench the ground with their fibrous fingers as a purchase against the storm wind, and at last holds aloft its tons of matter against the constant tug and wrath of gravitation, and swings its … arms in triumph over the globe and in defiance of the gale.
Were it not for this energetic essence that crouches in the acorn and stretches its limbs every year, there would be no oak….
Sermon
The sermon today covers the first century of the life of this congregation—its life and near-death experiences. Next month I’ll speak about the last half century of UUSS, a time which many of our members can remember. I’ve been here for only the past four years, but I’ve read our church histories, written by Rodney Cobb and Irma West, and combined and published a few years ago by three of our current members.
Given that the Board of Trustees has scheduled a meeting for the members to vote on calling me as a settled associate minister, it seemed important for me to think about the identity of this congregation, to understand who we are by asking the question: How did we get here?
The Unitarian minister Arnold Crompton attributed the growth of Unitarianism on the West Coast to several factors. First, Unitarians came to the West Coast when other Americans did: after the Gold Rush began in 1849, and after the 1869 completion of the transcontinental railroad made it easier to get here. These “transplanted” New England Unitarians wanted a church like those back home.
Also, the tightening of the lines of [religious] orthodoxy [made liberal Christians seek out others like them]. In the larger society, scientific challenges to traditional theology also boosted the appeal of religious liberalism.
Another factor was that “great ministers… by their preaching, their leadership, and their lives attracted people to their churches and denomination.” The first Unitarian church on this Coast was founded in 1850, in San Francisco. Thomas Starr King, a Universalist from Boston, came to serve it from 1860 to 1864. Then he died of tuberculosis at age 39. His successor, and other Unitarian clergymen from the East, led important churches in the major West Coast cities.
And there was a missionary outreach. Indeed, in 1865, the American Unitarian Association raised $100,000 for the spread of Unitarianism in the West. Energetic ministers and agents of the denomination “established churches or planted seeds of future churches.” One of these men, the Reverend Charles Gordon Ames preached on Sundays in San Jose and in Watsonville, and in 1867, he added Sacramento to his schedule, coming up here in his horse and buggy to preach for us.[i] His tireless ministry led to regular meetings of religious liberals in Sacramento.
Our first minister was Henry W. Brown, who arrived from the East and gave his first sermon on a Sunday evening in December 1867, at the Metropolitan Theater. Three months later, on March 29, a group of people signed an “article of agreement” to “associate ourselves in a body corporate, to be know as the First Unitarian Church of Sacramento.” The purpose of the church was “the worship of God and the service of Men.” With 17 families, the newly gathered congregation established bylaws. Progressive for the time, the bylaws allowed that of the seven trustees of the church, three of them could be women. (p. 14 of In Good Times and Bad, the UUSS history)
Then, about five years later, the church disappeared. This was in the nation’s financial panic of 1873, when banks were closing. Reverend Brown returned to Boston and nothing (apparently) happened for 14 years.
In 1887, a new congregation was established (or re-established). The next minister was was Charles P. Massey, a businessman from Philadelphia. Services were held in various meeting halls downtown, such as Pioneer Hall, and later at a new meeting hall named the Pythian Castle at 9th and I streets.
Another financial panic ensued in 1893. This led the Board to release the minister. Church records show minimal activity until 1911, when Board meetings again took place. But the congregation may have had money saved for a building program, for six months later it bought land at 27th Street between N and O streets. In 1915, the congregation built a church on 27th Street. An article in the Sacramento Bee said it was “constructed of cedar shakes, with brown stained woodwork. The windows are of amber glass in simple leaded patterns…. The structure cost $8,000.” So in 1915, we had our first home, and our first visible symbol in the community, since our founding in 1868. Prior to this, our church history says, the visible symbol of Unitarianism in the community was a person—not its ministers, but a lay leader, Dr. Henry L. Nichols. A charter member, he held one or another elected position in the church for 47 years. Imagine being on the Board for 47 years! A transplant from Maine, Nichols was a leader in Sacramento, one of the organizers of the local Medical Society. He was a crusader for pure drinking water in the city and served as president of our Board of Supervisors, and as California Secretary of State. Another founder of the Medical Society, Dr. Alexander Nixon, was also a Unitarian.
When the church was built on 27th Street, the Reverend Charles Pease was our minister, serving for five years. In the midst of rising inflation, an insufficient salary made it hard for him to stay, and he left in 1918. Later, the denomination sent out an extension minister who served the church for a year.
Then came Berkeley B. Blake. He was a local attorney who was a member of our board. He had run the Sunday School when Charles Pease was minister, and he had some seminary training. The church ordained him, and in 1922, Blake began serving as the part-time minister for two congregations—ours, and the one in Woodland, about 20 miles west of downtown. (It no longer exists.) During Blake’s five years in our ministry, he and the Rabbi of Temple B’Nai Israel held a joint Thanksgiving Day service. This began a long tradition of yearly activities between the two congregations.
Blake moved on to the Bay Area, to serve in the denomination’s regional office.
In 1927 a young minister came to us by the name of Robert E. Starkey. Starkey’s burdens in ministry included religious and political tensions about the 1928 presidential election, between a Roman Catholic Democrat, and a Quaker Republican, who was Herbert Hoover. Then began the Great Depression, late in 1929. Spending declined in the church, and attendance was erratic. In 1931, Berkeley Blake, our former minister and now a denominational official, learned that some of the church’s board members were unhappy with Reverend Starkey. They were planning to meet with him. Blake advised Starkey to recognize his “lack of success” and submit his resignation, for the good of the church. He did resign, to the dismay and protest of many church members. So the Board called a congregational meeting to let members vote on whether to accept Starkey’s resignation. The vote supported his continued ministry, but Starkey left anyway. He moved his family to Berkeley. Six years later, suffering mental anguish and about to be divorced by his wife, he took his life. The crew of a boat pulled him from the water near the newly constructed San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, “his clothing torn to shreds.” Starkey was the first suicide from that bridge.
Though it’s not a surprise that funding declined in the Depression, our congregation had always had a struggle with money. From its early years, it had never been self-sustaining. In the words of our historian, the congregation was “shy about raising money and soliciting members.” The Unitarian Society appealed many times for help to the American Unitarian Association, in Boston. This help came in the form of subsidies for ministers and grants for meeting space. For example, though there was no activity here from 1895 to 1911, there is evidence that Board members applied to the denomination for money in 1901. Money from Boston covered $6,000 of the $8,000 cost of our new 1915 church building (75). In the 1920s, the denomination gave us $2,000 toward Berkeley Blake’s yearly salary of $2,400. By 1927, Blake’s pay was a whopping $3,000 a year, and then he left for the regional job. Our history shows, also, that a number of church families often came to the rescue as financial angels (27).
In 1932, without a minister, we held services at night, so Bay Area ministers could make it here after finishing their services at home. The Depression lasted nearly a decade, during which modest levels of support came from Boston. Our leaders complained that Boston had always sent us ministers who were young and inexperienced. The church needed a skilled minster, and for this it asked for a large increase in aid… for just one year. This is all it would take for us to become self-supporting! The denomination said no. So, in 1935, the 20 remaining members halted Sunday services and rented out our building to a Unity church.
However, the Women’s Alliance continued to meet–twice a month. In fact, during all those ups and downs of church operation over the years, the Alliance met continuously since 1889. It provided literary and artistic programs for the benefit of the city, and raised funds to give to the congregation and other causes. Often, it was the Alliance that kept us afloat. In 1922, the Alliance had 241 dues paying members. The church had only 47. Though women had been limited to only three seats on the Board, they had represented 2/3 of the church’s membership. It was through the Alliance that women expressed their leadership and their power. One of its leaders was Julia Bray, who had joined the church in 1913. She taught in public schools here for 31 years, and passed away in 1949. The first fund created by the congregation for memorial gifts was the Julia Bray Fund for religious education.
For nine years, from 1936 to 1945, the church down in Stockton shared its minister with us. He was Arthur Foote II. He and his wife lived in Stockton. In 1945, the Footes left California for a large church in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Along with changes in leadership and membership numbers, our first 100 years included theological changes, reflecting those of many Unitarian churches. From its early days the Sacramento Society identified itself as a liberal Christian church. Liberal means not only non-Trinitarian, but non-dogmatic and inclusive. Our sermons dealt with the nature of the Divine, the human nature of Jesus, and the importance of his ideals. How inclusive was this Christianity? Well, Charles Massey preached these words:
[there is] a need for religious sentiment with which to meet the emotions of awe, of wonder, of terror, of love, of delight arising from the mystery by which we feel ourselves eternally surrounded. These emotions belonging to such gifted souls as Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Mohammed and Jesus have been regarded as revelation.
He said this in 1889! And all of us, he said, even “the humblest among us,” have the ability to test such revelations by our own experience. (17)
The church bylaws in the late 1800s said that the members gathered “in the love of truth and in the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth for the purpose of sustaining liberal Christian worship.” In 1913, the church removed that phrase. In its place, they added this: “We, whose names are here subscribed, associate ourselves together as a Religious Society for mutual helpfulness in right living and for advancement of sound morals and liberal religion in the community; and we … pledge ourselves to bear our part in common cause and to care for the welfare and influence of the Society.” (23, emphasis added)
In the 1920s, divisions arose in many Unitarian congregations—including this one—as religious humanism emerged to challenge theistic beliefs of the liberal as well as the orthodox variety. Humanism affirmed reason, intellect and science, and showed faith in the inevitable, never-ending improvement of humanity. Sometimes humanism saw science as our salvation. The majority of members who identified themselves as holding more “traditional Unitarian” ideas may have felt threatened by humanism. According to our historian, such divisions may have added to the stress on Robert Starkey’s troubled ministry with us in the late 1920s.
In the mid-1940s, however, it was clear that religious humanism was dominant in this congregation. It was also clear that the church was poised for growth in the years after World War Two. Sacramento itself was growing at 1,000 people per month. People were moving to California, and the Baby Boom was booming. Our next minister was Theodore Abell. He had gone to a Methodist college in Ohio and become a Methodist minister. At age 30, he was expelled for his lack of belief in church doctrine. In Southern California, Ted Abell was introduced to Unitarianism and Humanism. He founded and led the Hollywood Humanist Society, and hosted a radio program. He came up to Sacramento and served in the State welfare department as a social worker. He began working for us part time, until the church could raise enough money to pay him full-time. He served us for 15 pivotal years.
His efforts included raising the proportion of men involved in the church from 1/3 to close to 50%, typing a mimeograph for a monthly newsletter and ensuring the retention of it and other records for archival purposes, and encouraging the congregation to pay its own way and stop relying on the denomination for subsidies. This reliance didn’t end until 1951. In particular, Ted Abell urged us to pay for facilities that would be adequate for our needs.
In 1950, Sunday school attendance shot up from 20 to 79 children. The church bought a house next to out building on 27th street, and built a religious education building on the lot. Money still being a challenge, they built it themselves. The chair of the building committee, Wayne Perkins, worked hard on it, even though he no longer had young children. He said he was doing it “for other people’s children” (67). On Easter Sunday in 1951, 200 people attended, our largest crowd ever to that date. In 1953, we held a Big Rally to wipe out the mortgage debt and start a new building fund. In the 1950s, most American congregations were thriving and bursting at the seams, including ours. Soon we would have 200 children.
In 1956, Society members voted to buy a farm of almost six acres, out here, four miles from our Midtown site. Again, members did much of the construction work themselves. This included making the hexagonal molds for the windows in the poured-concrete walls of this Main Hall and the Religious Education building. We raised money in a capital campaign, took out a 10-year bank loan and a smaller loan from the denomination. The first event in this completed church was a strawberry social in June of 1960.
While all that work was taking place, controversy brought a tragic air to our success. Six months earlier, a congregational meeting considered a bylaws amendment that would make a compulsory retirement age of 68 for any minister. Ted Abell was already 68. Voting members balked at this amendment. They revised the amendment to apply only to future ministers, and to raise the age to 70. They passed a resolution praising Ted Abell’s ministry and asking him to stay, but only by a vote of 93 to 40. Hurt by all this, and hoping for unity for the congregation’s future, Abell resigned.
His last day in the pulpit was June 19, 1960. Members thanked him and his wife for their service with a gift of a new 1960 Plymouth Valiant. Yet he was no longer our minister by July 10, when we held our first service here in this space. Why did we have such an awkward way of urging the minister to quit? I’m not sure. Perhaps lay leaders noted a decline in his behavior and his cognitive abilities. Indeed, one or two members had noted behaviors, which later would be understood as symptoms of a brain tumor. By September he was very sick, and on November 22, Ted Abel passed away.
I can scarcely imagine a more dramatic time in the life of a congregation. Well, times got better here, and they became difficult again. Awkward struggle and brilliant success are woven through our history, as they are through most institutions and indeed through most nations, throughout human history. Failures and new starts, heartache and hope are part of our story.
This is our story. It seems to me that those who came before us were doing the best that they knew how. This is all that we can try to do—the best that we can. They did so much work, not only for themselves and their children, but for us and for our children.
They of did so much work not only for their own ambitions and needs, but for us, for all of us who have come after them. It is good to say thank you, and to continue doing the best that we know how. So may it be.
[i] Arnold Crompton, Unitarianism on the Pacific Coast (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957).
Filed under: International, Reflections, Trends in Religion, UU Denomination and Pacific Central District News and Views
February 4. Don’t know why this didn’t go out, but I found it in my drafts folder.
Assuming little turbulence, I like flying in a plane. Saturday I fly from SFO to Tokyo and then to Manila. Two days later I fly to Dumaguete City, on Negros Island, where the UU Church of the Philippines has its HQ. They will be hosting the conference of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists.
I get a lot of reading done on a plane. Few interruptions–except for the beverage cart and the food cart (on international flights). I also catch up on my popular culture with the little TV screen on the seat back in front of me.
Getting on a plane is a way for me to MAKE MYSELF take a break. Since adding some administrative and managerial duties to my portfolio (which I enjoy) and starting part-time doctoral studies, I’ve been busy. I thought January would be easier. School was not to start till January 31. I have done a lot but many things remain unfinished, not even started! Except for travel to Tucson on MLK Weekend, I have not taken a full day off during any week since Sunday, January 1.
I will be doing UU business, with liberal religious friends new and old from nearly every continent, so it’s not really a vacation. But it’s a change of pace, change of venue, change of perspective. That’s what Sabbath is supposed to provide. It starts on the jumbo jet.
Amen!
Filed under: International, Religious Studies: History, Travels, Trends in Religion, UU Denomination and Pacific Central District News and Views | Tags: ICUU, international Unitarian Universalism
Greetings from another day of the biennial meeting of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists, in Dumaguete City, Philippines.
Make your own guesses before reading further. The answers are buried in the paragraph below.
Each member group to the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists has voting delegates depending on how large its membership is. Each group also pays annual dues to the ICUU based on the group’s own count of its members. Groups from developed countries pay 50 cents (US currency) per member. Groups from less developed countries pay 5 cents per member. The Unitarian Universalist Association (USA) pays the largest share of support, about $60,000 a year. This is less than our calculated dues, which would be about $20,000 more. The answers to the above question: The USA has the largest number of adult members, 163,000. The second largest denomination is the 450-year old Unitarian Church of Transylvania (which is a Hungarian speaking province of Romania), with 45,000 members. The third largest is the church in Hungary, with 25,000. I understand that the Hungarians and Transylvanians will merge into one Hungarian-speaking Unitarian denomination in the near future, returning to their historic relationship. India (mostly in the Khasi Hills of the far Northeast Indian state of Meghalaya) has 10,000. Canada has 5,000 adult Unitarians. The liberal religious community of the Netherlands, recognized as our newest member at the February 7 ICUU Council meeting, has 4,300 members. United Kingdom has 3,700, but some great old church buildings.
UU Church of the Philippines has 2,000 adult members (and tons of kids!) Our newest “emerging group,” the UUs from Kenya, counts itself with 476 members. For now, I’m leaving off other. smaller or emerging groups from the developing world (and some of the shrinking European groups).
To read more about the council meeting, visit the Faith without Borders weblog: http://uuwithoutborders.blogspot.com/
Filed under: Becoming and Being Part of a UU Congregation, Books (includes sermons based on books), Church Finances and Stewardship, Comparative Religion, Graduate Theological school/PSR, Inspiration, Reflections, Stewardship & Finances, Trends in Religion, UU Denomination and Pacific Central District News and Views | Tags: abundance, family feuds, family finances, family issues, generosity, inheritance, money and life, scarcity, stewardship
Hymns:
“Earth Was Given as a Garden,” “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah,” “For the Earth Forever Turning.”
Reading:
Today’s reading comes from an advice column in the newspaper: “Money Manners.” Written by Jeanne Fleming and Leonard Schwarz, it’s in our local paper, and at moneyville.ca. Today’s column (1/8/12) is: “What to do when exchanging gifts with a cheapskate.” This letter won’t rival the epistles of the Apostle Paul, but it is heartfelt. [i]
Dear Jeanne & Leonard:
It happened again this Christmas. Each year my husband and I ask his brother what he and his family of four would like for Christmas, and each year “William” reels off a list of pricey items that end up costing us a couple hundred dollars. In return, he sends us next to nothing — this year, a bargain-basket DVD and some drugstore bubble bath. I can’t stand another year of opening William’s cheap gifts and then getting the credit card bill for the nice things we sent his family. What should we do? By the way, the guy’s not hurting for money. –Nora
Dear Nora:
If you can’t stand playing Santa to William’s Scrooge, stop asking William what’s on his wish list. As it is, you and your husband are putting yourselves in the position of either having to buy the expensive gifts William wants or ignoring his requests. Next year, instead of asking, buy your brother-in-law and his family presents of your choosing, presents you won’t resent having bought when William’s gifts arrive.
Here ends the reading.
Sermon
“Get your finances in order!” says the New Year’s Day headline in the newspaper’s business and money section. The article gives a checklist: reduce debt, watch your spending habits, and get a discipline of saving money. Practical, important help. Yet beneath “getting our finances in order” is everyone’s complicated relationship with money. This is a spiritual issue, and like other spiritual issues it can’t be taken care of by resolutions and checklists alone. It takes practice, patience, and honesty with ourselves.
Nearly every faith tradition has something to say about money, wealth, possessions, resources, and the needs of others. Liberal religious communities affirm the importance of this life, more than a future life. We do not dwell on otherworldly concerns, but on of how we live in the world as it is. As a medium of exchange, money is one way that we connect with the world.
Without giving some attention to our relationship with money, we risk ignoring its power and place in our lives. This is the message of Jacob Needleman, author of Money and the Meaning of Life. We are at risk of confusing money with our self-worth and our sense of possibility. In viewing others, we risk seeing money as a measure of character. In relationships, we risk seeing money—or using it–as a substitute for love or as an expression of our hurt or hostility. We need to pay attention, be honest, have some patience.
Go with me on a visit home, to see relatives back in my home state, two years ago. In the prior year, an aunt has passed away. My uncle—her husband, had died suddenly four decades earlier, when I was about five, the same age as their son. She and my cousin moved far away from us the next year. I hadn’t seen her for years before her death. On this day, I am visiting two cousins and another aunt, in my home town. “Did you get your money?” one of them asks.
I look puzzled. “Didn’t you get the letter from the lawyer?”
“No…?” I say. They tell me all about it.
My late Uncle Roy’s estate included an amount of money for all of his nieces and nephews, to be disbursed if the money remained after his widow would pass away. Now she has. So, every group of children of his brothers and sisters will get $48,000, to be divided among them in equal checks. This means three siblings will share a bequest, getting $16,000 each, and a lucky, only child will get the full $48,000. I express my surprise at this news. They get the letter out for me, and I read it. I look at the list of names. My cousins…my brother… everybody. But not me. “I’m not here,” I say.
“Well, honey, you weren’t born yet!” this aunt says.
“Yes, I was, I say. I am the same age as his own son.” He came into our family by adoption at age three. This boy and I were the youngest of the cousins, both of us with older parents. Surely I was too young for Uncle Roy to decide I was a bad nephew and leave me out of his will on purpose. He just forgot me.
“What are you going to do?” one asks, getting excited and curious.
“Well, I’m not sure. I’ll ask my brother about it. Anyway, it’s only money.” The rest of that visit, we make small talk. But my mind is racing. Let’s see, with my brother, each of us would receive $24,000. But I won’t. I was left out! Did my brother get this letter? He hasn’t said anything since I got here yesterday. Is he hiding this from me? I need to ask him.
The others report to me on a recent phone call from another cousin–the most outwardly accomplished of our generation of the family. In spite of a hefty two-person household income, this successful relative never has any money. This cousin has been in touch with all the others. The demand: Sign the acceptance form and send it to the lawyer soon, so the lawyer will forward the checks. I realize that neither this cousin, nor any others, will feel like including little old me in the calculation to receive some inheritance. The only chance is in my big brother’s hands.
My reaction to this news of a surprise inheritance, a potential inheritance, is like not feeling hungry, and then walking into a dining room with a table of steaming food: suddenly I want some of everything!
I get in the rental car and hit the highway to my brother’s house. We’ve planned a dinner out, just the two of us. I think: I’ll wait and see if he brings it up. No, I need to get it over with.
I worry, because he’s been worried about money, unrealistically so in my opinion. He retired early, but his wife has a great job, their house is paid off and he owns a rental property. However, we’re now in the Great Recession, he has no confidence in the government, and the angry programs on talk radio just add to his anxiety.
Well, I won’t make a big deal out of this, I think. Fights over money can tear a family apart. Before today, I didn’t imagine having any money than my own earnings. I think: If he gives me half, I’ll give most of it away. I’ll make that commitment right now. Yes I will!
In the Bible, in the book of Genesis, the brothers Jacob and Esau fight over their birthright, their inheritance. Esau, as the firstborn son, traditionally has the birthright in the family. Yet, when Esau comes back from a hunting trip empty handed, and very hungry, Jacob offers Esau a bowl of stew from the pot that Jacob has prepared. Esau trades in his future inheritance for the short-term gain of satisfying his appetite, his craving. Later, the younger Jacob impersonates his brother to trick their blind, aged father Isaac into giving the fatherly blessing to him instead of to Esau. In the story, this blessing cannot be taken back or transferred, even after the stealing is exposed. This theft launches a tumultuous future for the Hebrew people and sets a standard of disharmony for the whole human family. The first family feud over inheritance! I don’t want us to end up like those guys. I just want us to share.
I’m in my brother’s kitchen. He’s 12 years older, bigger, and stronger. He’s standing, I’m sitting. “I need to talk to you about something,” I say. I tell him about my discovery today and ask him if he’s received the letter. He says no. “Well, the others have,” I say. “You will.”
I explain the situation, and the humor of being the forgotten one. He doesn’t get it. I avoid asking straight out: Will you give me half of your money? Again I explain: “See, each set of siblings has to share each total amount among themselves. Since there are two of us… , each would get…”
“Oh,” he says. He gets it. He pauses. “Yeah, I’ll give you some of that money… if you’re nice to me.” I want to ask: What do you mean by “SOME”? How big a fraction is that? And: What do you mean by NICE?
As a youth I was not nice to my big brother. Looking back on my childhood, I see I was taking out my rage and frustration on him. I was angry at our parents. One was actively alcoholic. They were distracted parents, unhealthy, older than other kids’ parents, and fragile. I was careful not to be a burden. My big brother was happy, athletic, popular. A safe target for my hostility, and strong enough to take it. And he took a lot of it, from me.
He married a year before finishing college, against our angry father’s wishes. After graduation, he was unemployed. He mowed lawns to make money, and borrowed money from our parents. Dad used this fact as license to make my brother feel bad. Every hundred-dollar loan was an I-told-you-so. On my birthday one year, I got a windfall of cash. Maybe I was mowing lawns by this time as well. In any case, I was feeling flush. Brother came to me and asked for a loan, $100. Understandably, he didn’t want to ask Dad again.
I lent him the money, and confirmed the terms of the loan by mail. At age 11, I really liked using the typewriter, and playing with business documents. He received periodic statements of the debt he owed to me. Then postcards in the mail announcing “Past Due.” I don’t remember if he paid me right away, called me names, cried, or got Mom to make me lay off. It was not a nice way to treat him.
I realize now that in pestering my brother I was trying to make a connection with him—an awkward, hostile, counterproductive, 11-year-old way of connecting. When he moved closer to our home, my brother made money doing small-engine repair. I was his agent, putting ads in the local paper, taking phone calls while he was at work. He paid me a small percentage for this role. I would type up statements for my commission: I took business reply envelopes from our father’s office and used Whiteout to change the name to my own. I’d help him keep track of how much he owed me: $2 here, $3 there.
Now, he doesn’t owe me anything, and there’s a big check waiting for him. He can choose to split it with me or he can, quite legally, choose to keep it all.
Fortunately, my brother, the first-born son, has chosen to ignore my treatment of him, or to grant me forgiveness for it. Will he also grant me a full half his money? He could say he needs to save it for his own two grown children. He does eventually give me a half-share, but seems to drag it out, with two installments in the mail. I don’t send a bill this time.
Money has such pull for us, such power. Of course it does. Society is organized around it; it’s how we interact for the things we need and want and for the talents and work that we have to offer. As a medium of exchange, money simplifies our transactions. Yet because it stands for so much that we need and want and love and fear, money makes life complicated.
Most of us learn our attitudes and habits regarding money from the family culture in which we grow up. Growth and healing from unhelpful attitudes calls for attention, effort, and support. How did an 11-year-old loan shark like me learn a more healthy way with money? Maybe I haven’t! I do have some annoying habits about money, as well as healthier ones. I have my times of avoidance and my frantic moments.
But in many ways, I’ve healed and grown. The support for my growth has come from two sources: my friends and my Unitarian Universalist religious communities. Friends who are generous, no matter their wealth or poverty. Religious communities that remind me of the abundance and goodness of my life.
In a UU community, I am invited to appreciate my blessings, and give thanks. I learn about the needs of the world beyond these walls. I learn about generosity. Over the past 25 years, I’ve learned–from UU ministers and church members–that it’s possible to stretch myself and give, and feel good about it. I can give of my money, talents and time, and feel joy in it, and freedom. I can also feel good about earning money—not only gratitude to have it, but satisfaction that I have something to offer that people like you have chosen to support. Of course, mowing lawns for money can offer that same reward. Moreover, with mowing the results are more certain and visible than in ministry.
But as a fearful young person from a family that fought over money, I didn’t know what it meant, spiritually, to be paid or to pay others, to give or to receive. I didn’t know money from a spiritual perspective. As a boy, I went with my mother to a mainline, moderate Protestant Christian church. I recall they had an annual stewardship campaign, as most churches do. We paid a monthly pledge. But I didn’t hear what stewardship really meant. Back in the 1970s, the church was timid about money and your spiritual life. It was timid about sexuality too, another topic that makes people uncomfortable. Both topics do, even though they are important ones.
As an adult finding Unitarian Universalism, I found a place that looks at serious matters honestly. I learned what stewardship means. What it means to me: taking a good look at what has been handed on to you for your use and your care. Whether it’s the local environment, your neighborhood, your country—it is handed on to you for using, tending, and passing along to
others. Stewardship recognizes that we stand on the shoulders of generations and institutions that existed before we did.
Stewardship recognizes that what we do, how we live, what we give, will affect the lives of others, including those who come after us. We live for a moment in the stream of life, and it flows on. Stewardship is about connectedness and interdependence. It’s about belonging to one another, belonging to the past and the future.
A friend of mine is a Mormon historian. I ask him: “Does everybody there really give away 10 percent of their income to the church?” Yes, he says, most of them do tithe–and they make offerings on top of that. Mormons have the practice of a fast offering, he tells me. (I’ve learned that other traditions practice this a well.) Unless it causes medical problems, they won’t eat for one day a month, and will give away they money they would have spent on food. They give it away so others may eat. He says the idea is that all their bounty comes from God, and to make a tithe or an offering is merely to give some of it back.
As a young adult, I learned from my ministers that there are UUs who have a different idea of God—or the idea that there is no God at all—but who still have a practice of giving. They make a goal of giving away a percentage of their income due to their connection to the community, to people and the earth. From my UU communities, I got the idea to set a target of giving away 10% of my income, and move toward that target over time. I now give about 5% of my yearly income to the congregation and 5% to other organizations that I care about. I didn’t learn to do this from my family. I learned it from people like you.
I’ve read that Peter Singer, the controversial professor of ethics, gives away 20 percent of his income every year to important organizations. He’s an atheist, so he gives not out of the fear of God or for the love of God. He does it because he can, and because his giving can make a big difference in the lives of others.
I am now attending a doctor of ministry program, part time. The seminary is not a UU school, but a progressive, interdenominational seminary. That’s where my share of the money from our uncle’s bequest is now going. This inheritance will cover 2/3 of the cost of the degree, so it helps a lot. I thank my Uncle Roy and my big brother for the money. I love the school, and don’t mind supporting it with my tuition payments. The young, entering ministry students there—in the master’s degree program—give me hope for progressive religion. During the semester, I attend chapel services on Tuesday before lunch. The music is diverse and fun, sermons relevant and helpful. At every service the campus chaplain announces the offering, which goes to a cause chosen by the preacher for that service. I look around and think: Most of the people here are beginning ministry students, living on loans. But I’ve realized that the offering is a lesson for the ministry students. It’s a model about how to ask with grace and honesty, how to show confidence and kindness in asking. The chaplain says people at the school give “out of volition, not coercion.” Free-will, not pressure.
He says: “We ask for your financial support for this work, and for your prayers.” I decide that if they can ask, I can respond, so I participate in the offerings.
Nearly every faith tradition has something to say about money. Not because it’s bad. Not because it’s worthy of worship either. We should not idolize money, nor should we avoid it.
But we can take it seriously. Like most resources, it is limited: like our time, our attention, our talents, our health—it is limited, and important.
However much, or however little, we have of money…how we deal with it is a way to practice and grow in our sense of stewardship. We can practice, and we can strive to gain our money responsibly, receive it with gratitude, lend it or borrow it carefully, spend it thoughtfully, and share it with joy.
Responsible, grateful, careful, thoughtful, joyful. Joyful.
So may it be. Blessed be, and amen.
[i] January 8, 2012. Found at www.moneyville.ca/article/1111131–what-to-do-when-exchanging-gifts-with-a-cheapskate.
Filed under: Becoming and Being Part of a UU Congregation, Comparative Religion, Graduate Theological school/PSR, International, Trends in Religion, UU Denomination and Pacific Central District News and Views | Tags: ICUU, Kenya UU, Transylvania Unitarian, worship
Today will be the second full day of the council meeting of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists, at South Sea Hotel Resort (don’t be too impressed) in Dumaguete City, on Negros Island.
Tuesday night I slept 9 hours and Wednesday had more coffee, so I nearly made it through the day without a nap or nodding off. Today, Wednesday, I’m very rested. It rained heavily last night, and the A/C was so loud in the bedroom that you heard the rain (and the roosters) only while in the bathroom. The humidity makes my finger tips stick to these keys, but it’s much less cooler outside. I sit on the patio as the young ladies set up for breakfast. The wind and the waves are strong.
Yesterday began and ended with worship. The man from Mexico City read poems in Spanish and translated them into English, introduced chocolate as a gift from Latin America (chocolatl is an Aztec word), and introduced a chocolate communion. We sang Spirit of Life, and a few of us knew the Spanish Fuente de Amor to sing those words with him. After dinner and the evening session of the ICUU Council, we walked about 10 minutes to get to the headquarters and local church of the UU Church of the Philippines. I’ll attach pictures after our ICUU President posts them. We gathered in a circle of plastic chairs, inside the building, but the circle spilled out into the grounds.
Wednesday evening worship was led by Joshphat, a young man who is secretary of the UU Council of Kenya. Tall, thin, very dark, with a big smile that showed with every word he spoke. He wore long black pants and a baggy shirt of tan corduroy. Afterward I told him would be dying and asked if he was hot. He was, but he had not expected this hot, humid climate. He said Nairobi was not as bad. That made his earlier invitation to visit Kenya seem feasible. I offered him tee shirts, but he said he had some lighter clothing.
He had typed out the short worship service, and it was copied for us to have as handouts. It was four “Prayer Subjects” and then singing in Kiswahili. He read aloud the paragraphs of the prayer subjects: The people of the Philippines for their warmth, and for the victims of floods and landslides and the recent quake. His country of Kenya, still dealing with political unrest. The people of Somalia, Syria Egypt, Libya, “for peace, stability and prosperity in their countries.” The people at the conference, its organizers, and the families we have left back home. We stood to “hold a one minute silence reflecting on the subjects” and read in unison a prayer he had written out.
Then he got his guitar and taught us two short sung responses in Kiswahili, over and over until we got it. Then he sang short verses, and we responded. It was celebratory and prayerful (I could tell by the spirit of the singing and by the words translated). After that, we sang one of the refrains over and over and walked around and around, shaking hands and greeting one another with the sung refrain, hakuna matata. People of all nations did this just right–the words, the tune, the smiles, the melee of fellowship.
THE MOST MOVING PART OF THE DAY
Right after worship, the Bishop of the Unitarian Church in Transylvania (Hungarian-speaking province in Romania) asked for us to quiet down. Earlier that day at the council meeting, Kenya had been recognized as our newest “Emerging Group” of Unitarian Universalists in the world. (This means they are still in formation but are on their way to becoming members of the ICUU.) As the representative of the oldest Unitarian church in the world (450 years), he had some gifts to present to the Kenyans, the newest Unitarian church in the world. He gave a small white crocheted table cover (because hospitality is of primary importance in religious community), a ceramic candlestick glazed with designs from Transylvania (and a candle), a wall hanging of the Translyvania’s Declaration of Religious Tolerance (1658) from the Unitarian king, John Sigismund, and another wall hanging of a house blessing.
BACK AT THE BAR
I chatted over a beer in the hotel bar with a man from the staff of the Unitarian and Free Christian Churches in the United Kingdom, and a member of the congregation in Toronto. I also got to know a young woman painter from Maryland, who will be moving to California to attend seminary soon.
Filed under: Adult Enrichment and Group Meetings, Becoming and Being Part of a UU Congregation, Comparative Religion, Comparative Religion, Graduate Theological school/PSR, International, Religious Studies: History, Trends in Religion, UU Denomination and Pacific Central District News and Views
Appendix III: Is It Christian? Historical Details on American Unitarianism
This question has been a source of conflict within our movement, especially on the Unitarian side of our history. It was a dispute about how far liberalism in religion could go and still resemble its original form—and still resemble a religious movement. In the 1800s, as ministers and other Unitarians moved west and gathered new congregations, many claimed the label Unitarian but not the label Christian. They spoke of “ethical religion.” They argued that attempts to describe the movement as Christian were infringements on spiritual freedom and the liberty of religious conscience. Unitarians who led the denomination in Boston and those who lived closer to Boston than to the Midwest argued that we would risk losing our roots and sense of identity if we did not, as whole, describe our movement as a liberal form of Christianity.
Points in history often identified as the departure from considering ourselves Christian include the Transcendentalist Movement of the 1830s to 1850s (a literary, philosophical and spiritual movement led by resigned Unitarian minister Ralph Waldo Emerson and other intellectuals, most of whom had grown up as Unitarians).
Other factors included the Free Religious Association (founded in 1867 by radical Unitarians unhappy with a sole Christian focus), and the Western Unitarian Conference (founded by radicals to recruit ministers and plant churches in order to spread Unitarianism to what is now the Middle West). In 1887, this Conference adopted a document entitled “The Things Most Commonly Believed Today Among Us.” Written by William Channing Gannett, it allows for the presence of non-Christian Unitarian beliefs.
A document called the Humanist Manifesto, was published as a magazine article in 1929 calling for a reform of religions so they serve human needs rather than restricting the full flourishing of human life for adherence to disputable doctrines. IT carried the signatures of 15 Unitarian ministers, 17 college professors (primarily in philosophy) and one Universalist minister.[1] All of the signers were white men. During much of the twentieth century, many Unitarians (and, since 1961, UUs) have referred to themselves, and often to their whole congregations, as Humanists. For many, this has meant agnostic or even atheist.
To an outside visitor, a typical UU church service in much of the twentieth century might have seemed like a long lecture with a few pieces of classical music, a song or two, and announcements about life in the church and local community. However, since the early 1980s, many UU ministers and lay members have “rediscovered” spirituality: the importance of personal spiritual practice, study of the Bible and other scriptures, and exploration of one’s religious background, including Jewish, Christian or other traditional rituals in families. Perhaps the recent openness to fellowship with indigenous Unitarians or Universalists in other countries is a reflection of our recent rediscovery of spiritual expressiveness.
For more information: “Unitarianism,” by Mark Harris, The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity, Daniel Patte, ed. (Cambridge, 2010: Cambridge University Press), 1263-4.
